


Minus Human

by AngelWolf



Category: Dead or Alive (Video Games), Devil May Cry
Genre: Action/Adventure, Adventure & Romance, Alternate Universe - Noir, Corporate Espionage, Detective Noir, Espionage, F/M, Fist Fights, Gen, Gothic, Horror, Multi, Mystery, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-26
Packaged: 2021-03-28 05:41:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 43,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30134838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelWolf/pseuds/AngelWolf
Summary: Demons don't exist, at least that's what people hope. Corporate terrorism is the new problem. A grizzled detective of the occult becomes involved in espionage, corporate rivalry, ninjas, and at the center lies a world-threatening mystery many years in the making. An old face returns and so does his hatred, but will it damn humanity for all time?
Comments: 4
Kudos: 2
Collections: Devil May Cry Works





	1. The Wait

**Author's Note:**

> Right, so, I'm gonna keep this short and sweet:
> 
> This is a story set in my own continuity I've been working on, that means my rules, my style, and differences between the original games and what I present here. You must understand that both DMC and DOA as properties pretty much can only work in their original execution as video games, and for the purposes of writing a crossover story that also makes sense and isn't eye-gouging-ly dumb; that means having to make dramatic changes in certain instances to provide logical workarounds and stronger plotting. 
> 
> Add on to that I seek to retell the events DMC V. So, that means this'll be a strong AU story that marches to its own beat, I cannot make that clear enough. By virtue of the medium, it's a necessity to rewrite the world to its new context to make things work, at least for me, considering unlike the games, I don't have any gameplay to make up for shortcomings. Along with that are changes made from personal grievance as well. And those are many.
> 
> Oh yeah, and one more thing, on the subject of the nature of how much deviation there will be, since it's a retelling— or really more a reimagining, that's the better word— of DMC V, I don't want to spoil the mystery, but:
> 
> "That day, if our positions were switched . . . Would our fates be different? Would I have your life, and you mine?"
> 
> Hopefully that prepares you for what's to come in the long haul. You've been warned. So, without further adieu:

The city bred evil and arsenic corruption like a leaky faucet. The shit was so bad it got on your skin like grease from one of those auto-repair places, wouldn't come out for a long time. One man, a man who was rather tired, knew that fact all too well, himself an old expert in the ways of Edgemere's blankly neglected backstreets. He returned home from a hard day's night, working himself raw just trying to catch a simple burglar.

It'd been the result of a long private investigation that he'd only just recently come back to his office. Edgemere was a crooked place, just a bunch of playing cards with no dealer, a sprawling mess, industrial nightmares and complex labyrinths of a particularly olden ilk. The white-haired man walked into his poorly-lit gothic study, trudging on further behind a black desk. As he sat down in his oversized chair, he propped up his feet on the wood surface. The walls were lined with paintings and a few old bookcases. At other points, the simple bare surface laid naked, bleak and barely renovated. Each partition was painted a drab color he didn't care to memorize, while one was composed of simple brown bricks. It sat next to the glass entrance that overlooked a luscious courtyard.

Luscious in the sense that it was overgrown. It was the only life growing in this crooked city.

Out front, the garden was unkept and slightly excessive. The owner _was_ pretty lazy, after all.  
In the center was a little stone fountain that sprung its fresh waters into the surrounding pool.

It never grew stagnant, always flowing as though it were Spring.

Behind him to his right, an old metal stairwell led upwards to another area altogether, one where he could find greater sanctuary if noisy intruders were bugging him.

He'd just gotten done with another case today. Someone called in looking for him to bust the head off an apparent jewel thief. Easily caught, as predicted.

His back was sore, and he didn't know how. It was just worn. Maybe, it was all the running and jumping. He'd gotten that bastard regardless, hauling him into the local station without a word.

All the evidence to put the guy away was there in a box, filed and ordered haphazardly.

To the left of him was a warm, old-style bar reminiscent of the midwest. It was stocked with various liquors; gin, whiskey, cheap wine and other things like that. Despite the fact it wasn't worth drinking all of it, he kept them for guests. Maybe they'd get a buzz. He couldn't, but it looked nice. He'd come in past all that and poured himself a glass of water. He supposed he kept all of it around as well for nostalgic purposes. One of the many jobs he'd held in the past was a bartender, so he just sort of knew these things. He was always a quick learner, a few brief glances later and he was golden, but for the most part the cabinet was devoid of any other goods. A lone exception was the mini freezer-refrigerator, where the man stored some vanilla ice cream and fresh strawberries. It was an infantile obsession he had, but he enjoyed the treat anyway whenever he had the time to make it. Perhaps he'd have some in a few moments.

His appearance was not exactly what you'd call normal. He was a tall one, wearing a black red long coat that rested comfortably on his shoulders and came down to knee height. The crimson coloring on his flared lapels also extended onto his shoulders, and formed a thick stripe that ran down the outside of both arms. At the end of the sleeves was an inch-and-a-half-long cuff of identical pigment that met and conjoined with the beam design. On the back, the crimson continued down solid and ended roughly just above his waste-line. Silver buttons and pins signaled a gothic calling, and he seemed to embrace that notion with the silver pendants and other odd antiques he'd stashed on the old shelf units.

Beneath the stygian coat, he had on a red button-up, fastened only halfway, and a navy blue undershirt. Faded brown cargos shaped out his legs. Nothing fancy but they got the job done.

Fingerless black gloves adorned his steady hands, and dark biker boots met up with his shins.

The devil inside him was a stylish savage, and on these streets, you had to dress to kill or you were alone.

A black pleather belt completed the ensemble. Classy.

He liked to keep things simple, and he did look good. If ever anyone stared and asked about his hair, he simply said he greyed early. It helped him look distinguished. People liked a sense of humor, he found. He was one hell of a guy, usually. Persuasive, impelling of character; insidiously likable and good-humored and imperturbable. Sometimes, he was found to be somewhat obnoxious, but if the party was right, he killed.

His face was a pleasant mixture of rugged male features. Good looks came honestly from his father. He seemed tired, disinterested in most of what was going on outside.

With a sigh, he leaned back in his chair, the empty glass resting on the table beside his feet.  
His chair was comfortable, even if it pressed up against his shoulder blades.

"Ah," He sighed, closing his eyes, "no jobs for the weekend. I can just kick back and relax," he said to himself.

He grabbed a magazine of questionable content and began casually flipping through.

He sat there scanning each page slowly, sometimes revisiting ones he liked the look of, spending five minutes staring blankly at the glossy pages.

The phone rang. It was someone familiar, he knew that. He banged his left foot on the table's edge, and the handset flew off the receiver. He caught it with his right hand as he put the magazine flat on its back. He spoke into the phone dispassionately. It could only be one person.

"Yo."

"Redgrave, I'm sending someone for you. She's, uh . . . -She's different." The handler spoke.

His partner snickered to himself, "She give ya a handful, Morrison?"

"In a manner of speaking. She's just . . . rather unique. You'll see what I mean. She refused to speak to anyone but you."

"What're you thinkin'? Trouble?" The man spoke into the receiver.

There was a brief pause. Seemed like he was having trouble thinking what to say next.

But the answer did come, ". . . Yes, there's somethin' off about it. Keep your head straight."

"Hm, gotcha," Dante replied, "Thanks for the tip."

"Good luck."

"I'll be waiting." He almost groaned as he threw the old landline off to the side, like he didn't care. Somehow, it landed right back on the base, as if he'd aimed for it. And now, it was time to wait. And did he ever hate waiting. It was a life of waiting, this dumb game he played. Since he'd taken up private-eye work, his business had never been healthier. He liked the way cash rolled in, it was a different kind of work from what he'd done before, but he enjoyed it, the new income let him start saving up for things. Bye bye, debt.

He leaned back to enjoy the peace and quiet.

Fiddling about with the floppy book some more, he kept waiting on end for a long twenty minutes.

The woman hadn't arrived yet. Odd.

"Haah, okay. That's starting to get boring," he complained, closing the catalogue and tossing it on the desk.

As he did so, he took his feet off, leaning forward to wipe off the marks he left behind.

"Pfft . . . Ppppppppl . . ." He began making sounds with his mouth, rolling his lip as he stared at the ceiling for another twenty minutes.

He kept trying to amuse himself but he soon got tired of that as well.  
The man stared at his non-existent watch, then glared at the clock on the wall.  
Forty-five minutes. This was becoming annoying. He hated waiting. A lot.

Who was this person anyway? He'd find out soon enough, he supposed.

Another half hour went by. He'd fallen asleep, but when he came to, the woman had _still_ not arrived. The smells hadn't changed, nothing was disturbed, so no one had come and gone.

God damn it.

He sat awake for ten minutes, fiddling with a drawer handle. Up and down he pried at the old metal thing.

Still, no one. He looked at that same clock above the front door.  
Yep, the amount of time passed was exactly what he guessed.

"Oh my god, you kiddin' me?" He muttered aloud.

Whenever Morrison called, the client was usually right around the corner, no exceptions. It was healthier for their business relationship. Morrison knew not to piss him off, lest he wanted to pick up what was left of his car at the scrap heap. It would take between five to fifteen minutes usually. The handler was professional like that. So, what in hell was taking so long? God damn, she better be here soon. Instantly, like damn magic, his wish was granted when the doors chimed open, bells ringing. Exceptionally beautiful, platinum-haired, and all woman from head to toe, she was wearing a black cocktail dress as she walked into his humble abode. Upfront and center was the woman's chest slung freely in that low-cut sleaze he gorged on.

The bells clanged about playfully, and she spoke to him, "Well, you're looking quite dreary, sweetheart."

His ears defined the accent as British. Skipped across the pond, had we?

"No one's lookin' dreary on purpose ma'am, just my immense apathy boiling over. Speaking of which, what can I do for you?" He smirked.

At least the wait was worth it.

"I'm looking for a man who can help me, someone who knows their way around a gun." Those words gave him pause, and she asked him, "You don't know where I could find one, do you?"

Mental note checked, Morrison had a good point.  
Looking for services rendered payable on death was a bad investment here.

He leaned back in his chair, at once amused and bemused together at the sight before him, and he said, "Look no further babe, whaddya need?"

"Good boy, I knew you looked up to the task. I heard through the grapevine that you're a particularly talented hit-man. You can make bad people . . . 'undesirables,' disappear. Is that true?"

She mentioned it so lovingly.

As she strolled towards his desk, he wondered why anyone with her looks bothered with this part of town. It wasn't a very good area to begin with. It was an urbanized development, where proud thugs and gangsters ran amuck, and every cop you saw was on the take, guns bought and sold. Many an unsolved murder case fluttered his way. In fact, they comprised half his work load if the season was just right. Such is life. Even when investors tried reforming the neighborhoods, crime just stuck around like a bad hangover, a hazy needle plucking away at the good deeds attempted, till nothing but racism and target practice remained. It just wasn't a good part of town, _at all_.

What was an uptown girl from out of state doing here?

Cautiously, he answered, "Uh, sure. I do hits from time to time. Just depends. Who you got suckin' up useful air?" The man leaned forward.

Seduction and murder went hand in hand like silver and gold, they were the oldest partners of the trade. He adored her allure, everything about her was enticing. She was stacked well, built like a brick shithouse on 45th and Main. Even still, the mention of death bothered him. Murder was a strange game he rarely played. It was beyond seldom when he took a life not demonic or otherworldly in nature. The soul in question had to be totally, completely corrupt; irredeemable in the eyes of god, sick to their core. Then, and only then, would he bend on that rule. The attractive visitor knew she'd hooked him though, like a wide-eyed fish. He'd known many a scumbag, and he hoped that's all it was: a scumbag.

His eyes wandered her body.

"I want you to take care of this rather unpleasant tosser who used to be my husband."

"What'd this guy do to you, and frankly, why?" He cracked wise half-heartedly. "I'd kill myself if I made someone like you want me dead."

She chuckled, "Oh, you're sweet."

She looked around his office. It was gloomy, though it appealed to her. It was a tad strange, looking almost like something back home, old-fashioned and rugged. Advancing towards him, she naturally sat on the desk next to his legs. She leaned in, her generous cleavage becoming exorbitant. Size double d. Spectacular. She was filled out as well, evenly proportioned. And that face. A face like hers came around only once in awhile. Last time he saw anyone like that was a pin-up model in the fifties, gorgeous. What it was that her husband disliked about her, he really couldn't see. Despite those killer looks, her perfume was what caught his attention next.

It reminded him of a long-gone time. Numerous memories flooded his head like a whirlpool of distilled time. Some were happy. Some ended badly. Some weren't for rebroadcast. The most glaring thing was that it was a nearly flawless scent. He'd never found anything as sweet, as rich, as moderate, and balanced, within any other woman he'd ever met. Whatever she was doing in the morning as her routine, it was working.

Thoughts at large, he almost forgot she was still there, and she spoke to him again, "I caught the bastard cheating with a French hussy in the apartment we shared in New York City. Some blonde whore I'd met once or twice at a party upstate. They were in bed together under my own sheets, in my own room, naked and smoking," she told him, "I asked him what he was doing with her and he-" she paused and chuckled, "He said he was only 'inspecting her arts.' He didn't even try and hide it."

"Oh jeez," He hadn't expected her promptness, "What else did he do?"

"Take your pick, he did them all. Ignored me, beat me, drugged me, and he lied to me. He lied to me so very often."

"So the usual shittery." He raised an eyebrow.

"Afraid so. It never ended with him and now I'm destitute. He had all the money you see. Kept it locked up in an account and held onto it tightly, both the money had before him and what I made with him. The law won't do anything about it, and I don't have any money to pay for a lawyer, conveniently. So I've just spent my time feeling humiliated and deprived . . . I want them to suffer, I want them to burn, I want them to feel what I've felt. Can you understand that?" She asked him.

He nodded, "Yeah, I believe I can. When exactly did you find out?"

"About the whore? I caught him with her on our anniversary, of all days it could've been. He told me I was better off dead like all the other coke-addicts on the row. I threw a stiletto at him. That's when he struck me. I just left, I didn't know where to throw myself. So I came here, hoping someone with such a reputation as yourself could help me," she said.

She glowered off at the wall just thinking about it. Good acting skills.

"My reputation, eh? Guess I'm still a regular ole celebrity in some places."

She snickered at him, and they shared a smile, "Just once, I want him to feel pain. I want him to understand exactly what he put me through. And when he thinks that's the end, I want him to suffer more, both of them. I want you to put a bullet right between their eyes, one each. I'd rather see him dead than ever hear his fat-headed voice again."

She singularly harsh and focused. He'd heard more than a dozen stories like it before. Shit-head partners needed straightening out.

Perhaps it was just an immutable element of the universe: women were destined to be trampled on and abused by the men who wanted them.

"Gotcha . . ." He didn't know what to add. "You sure you want 'em dead? I do get what you've been through, I just want to make sure. Once you cross that line, there ain't no comin' back."

Her gaze came back to his eyes and paused, smiling, "But my dear, that's exactly the point."

Dante could see it in her, conviction stood strong. He understood, "Okay. You got a deal."

She crossed her arms in satisfaction, "Yes . . . I knew I could count on you."

"Now, uh, on the matter of my fee." He'd almost forgotten

"Right," She said, striking a pensive look down, "Well, as I said, I don't have much. _He_ spent most of what I had."

"That's unfortunate." He remarked, "I'm afraid I don't take jobs like this unless there's payment."

She glared at him, "You have to understand, I'm desperate."

"Yeah, I feel ya and all, but I'm sorry," He said, and he folded his arms, "Can't take the job unless you got the cash. It goes against my rules, if you catch my meaning."

The woman reached out her palm and touched his inner thigh. It caught him by surprise, especially on a day like today. She soothed his discontent gently and came close to his face. With a peck of his nose, she drew him in and pressed her red lips against his, closing her eyes as she did. God, it was like syrup on a pancake, sweeter than caramel. Absurd, though it may have seemed, she planted a kiss on his lips and drew back soft breaths.

"Please," she asked kindly.

Well, he could live a little, he supposed. Not every rule was made to be followed. He was known for not following them anyway.

"Um, well-" he began to fumble, "Ah, I'm sure we could work something out. You got a place to stay, or you just passin' through?"

"I can't afford a hotel room." She said as she peered back up at him.

Jesus Christ, she had a lustful eye. That thing could strip the brassiere off a nun.

Roll with it.

"I think it'll be just fine." At this, Dante gave his charismatic smile, "I'm good at problem-solving."

Leaning back, she dangled one of her full-figured legs out over his lap and brushed the ball of her foot on his leg. Christie's calves were well defined and her skin was uncommonly smooth. She welcomed his caress like an old flame in the fireplace. She ran her foot towards the center of his legs, planting it firmly over his swollen friend downstairs. Sometimes, that's just the way the cards rolled. He was her violin and she was playing every string. After a moment, she smiled and his hands reached her calf. Did she treat every stranger this way? The man's hand moved further up into her dress, near to her curvy bottom. Her heartbeat quickened.

Women always enjoyed his touch.

"What's your name?" Ridiculous. He still didn't know.

"Christie."

"I'm Tony." The man spoke it clearly.

"I already know that, silly," she said, "Your boss told me on the way in."

"Yeeeaah, he's really not my 'boss,' he's more of a-" and before he could finish his sentence, she kissed him again.

Some dirtbags just deserved it. Who'd step out on a girl like this anyway? Something wasn't adding up here, the more he thought about it. So many times he'd known similar women, and when he thought back on them, more often than not they'd done it to themselves. Then again, when she looked the way she did, you really couldn't waste time thinking. What did she want trouble with him for? Something about it was just . . . 'different' from his ordinary work. Usually, his jobs weren't so rosy. He'd be stuck tracking down missing persons, or looking into things people didn't quite 'understand.' On the off-chance a local girl couldn't get her shit together, he got passed along these kinds of jobs, beating up jerky boyfriends or sniffing out cheaters.

She certainly played her cards well enough, but he knew there was more she wasn't saying. Something about the story she told just didn't seem . . . _right_. He wasn't a psychologist, but he was pretty certain she'd be considered a partial psychopath, at the very least. He wished she would've ask him for something down-to-earth, like a broken jaw or a repoed loan. Usually, loss of any magnitude was enough, unless they really, _really_ had it in for their former associate. Hell, maybe she did. Maybe that was just _his_ paranoia talking. In truth, the only time he really enjoyed this job was when the cases took on paranormal aspects. He loved that, dealing with paranoia, abandoned buildings, urban legends, ghosts, or even Cryptid hunts, as evidenced by the case earlier in the day.

A few reports of MIB's even came through occasionally. He took them mostly for shits and giggles.

A part of him always wondered if some stain remained of the time before now, years ago.

He stared at her, and sighed, "Oh by the way, what're their names, if you don't mind me asking? That's a kinda crucial step to this whole hitman thing."

Christie smiled to herself almost sadistically when she said, "Bayman, and Helena Douglas."

* * *

**(*.*.*)**

* * *

The day was hot, a searing stew of vacant emotion and meandering thoughts. Inside a business building, a business-mind spun out.

Hard to believe it had been seven years. Seven entire years had passed since the last time a tournament was held.

Victor Donovan— one of the company's ex-CEOs, also ex-living— had been hellbent to destroy DOATEC. And a man named Rig surfaced, Victor's son. By all accounts, he was a meat-headed drone who really was focused much more on fighting than thinking, yet somehow, that boy was running MIST. Just another terrorist organization, but if you asked them, saviors to mankind. Why were the psychos always 'saviors?' Don't know how you call killing people en masse being a 'savior.' The gang was a sore spot. They caused all kinds of havoc across the world, playing to their parent company's worst inhibitions. They'd grown like a parasite, using vast swaths of soulless clones to commit crimes, robberies, themselves abominations of nature. Eventually, they found themselves a quaint little island to settle on off the coast of Africa. Forged a partnership with the surrounding territories, promising stronger agricultural returns on a shoestring budget. All their bureaucratic power was consolidated into a micro-nation.

Politics galore, a few broken systems manipulated, and then they joined the UN.

Once that was done, wasn't much else she could do to 'em. That was all she wrote.

What a damn mistake that turned out to be, thinking they were a minor threat.

Meanwhile, stateside, DOATEC failed. Hard. Their commercial appeal weakened as competitors out-manned their fanbase, soon there were many tournaments setting up shop. The appeal of their brand didn't seem to have that same old magic anymore. Ratings for the fifth installment were rather disappointing. They lost money. It was not exactly the best-put-together company to begin with.

That kind of failure bred competition in an open market system like America. It was about the only sector left that hadn't fallen prey to corporate monopolies.

Advertisers cut their support, running off to other companies that alleged safer bets, and that eventually left the company without any major sponsors.

Victor's reputation alone still tainted business operations, the ratings failure only heightened the use of that excuse, so the logic of the day was no one trusted them anymore. Nothing but depression in an email chain. Helena herself had nearly died on a company power plant to the hands of assassin Christie, her absurd mortal nemesis. Why does anyone need a mortal nemesis anyway?

And now, word through the grapevine was that, in lieu of there being no major Dead Or Alive World Championship, MIST would be hosting one of their own.

Anything to create more chaos.

"Damn," she said to herself.

Sitting in her office, she was tired from a long day of work. Years of skullduggery seemed to be wasted, so now they just drained her energy. The woman draped herself over the leather chair, positioned behind her dark oak desk casually. It was some fancy, ornate thing. It made the room look professional, and looks were what really mattered. The blinds were drawn shut and the lights turned off. It was the tail-end of a weeklong heatwave. A few simmering rays of sunlight peaked through from between the shades. The woman felt a headache coming on, so she'd chosen to douse herself in the crisp flood of darkness. The lone source of light was a cool-toned deep blue that emanated from the entire ceiling itself, made up of a robust series of calming low-light fixtures installed across the plain domed roof of the executive office suite. They worked to give the illusion of it being cold on a day when the air conditioning wasn't enough.

Helena pressed a button on the intercom at her desk and spoke into it, "Bayman, my office."

The burly Russian soon entered the room with a powerful presence. He briefly touched his face, running his thumb down his scar as he recalled for a fleeting moment the pain of receiving it. The man could still remember what it was like that day, the smoke in the air, the choking heat, that cloaked monstrosity. His disfigurement cut across his rugged mug diagonally, starting above on his forehead through an eyebrow and across his nasal bridge, ending on his cheek. His temples were graying now. Age will do that to you.

But he quickly moved his hand away, back down to his side, presenting himself as the model security soldier.

You weren't allowed to show weakness in this business. Most especially not in front of your corporate boss.

Since the last tournament in particular, he'd become chief of security staff, training new people as he aged. His knowledge regarding the company's political standing was rather important. He'd done work as a former 'short-term freelancer.' Her version of the company was structurally far more sound. To him, she was a good employer, somebody he respected well and felt to be competent.

Yet still, there was a tense silence.

Her face had a look of anger, resentment.

Hopefully, that wasn't for him.

"Yes, ma'am?" Bayman always spoke gentlemanly towards her, a show of respect. His voice was deeper now than it had been in his youth, "Is there something bothering you?"

Helena raised an eyebrow, "Bothering me? What gave you that impression?"

"Ma'am, you never request company. That and you're just . . . staring at me. You aren't sending me out on a mission this early in the year, are you? Because that just occurred to me."

She suppressed a chuckle. It was a kind of cynical, light thing. She found it genuinely funny, and he didn't quite know how to take that. He'd never seen her laugh. She crossed her fingers and maintained the austerity that defined any successful executive.

"I'm afraid so, actually."

"Yes ma'am," he affirmed and kept his eyes forward.

"Do you know anything about this 'tournament' MIST is organizing? _'_ "

"Pardon?" He stood slack-jawed.

He figured it wasn't his place to know business like this.

"They haven't announced it publicly yet, but several sources close with us claim it's going to be happening at some point on their 'island nation,' as a way of 'promoting their culture and prominence on the world stage,'" she told him, a real disgust present in the words, and by the look on his face, Helena knew he had no knowledge on it whatsoever. She knew she could trust him, but it wasn't smart to ever leave any room for doubt.

"We cannot sit aside and let the current state of affairs define the future. Donovan is dead, yet his operations remain active, no doubt the product of his apparent heir. This is not a powerhouse company anymore, sad to say. We just don't have endless piles of money we can pull from. Christie remains intent to tear my throat out, it is only a matter of time. I am doing what I can elsewhere, but with so much isolation, I feel another, more tactical path, is required."

He stared at her blankly, unsure what to say. Should he even say anything?

"So, they're holding a tournament and you are going to sabotage it."

Now he understood.

"Yes ma'am."

"You are to enter the tournament's line up under the guise of a falling out of relations with this company. That won't be a problem, you are not a public figure. So, you will remain undercover while on location, and compete. Laying low won't be an option, so a false termination of employment report will be made, just to enhance the illusion and prevent suspicion. You're a soldier, you know war and you know espionage. This won't be difficult for you." Helena was serious.

She remained stoic, as always. So their sworn enemies would be holding a martial arts competition? Perfect timing on a perfectly shitty cake of bad business this year. Was it common to feel excessive rage? No, probably not. She thought about seeing a therapist for that. If she ever found the time, she'd get right on it. Bayman was known as a good listener at least, maybe he'd be up for talking later, but she knew it would be grossly unprofessional of her. Better, then, to keep it locked away for the foreseeable future, as unhealthy as that may be. In business, it was a smarter idea to keep most at around you at arms length, or so she'd learnt from her father.

Fame had been a complicated man. The company he built was still profitable, at least, just underwater. It wasn't her fault that the economy was taking an extended crash.

"Yes ma'am." He repeated.

"You will be on your own for a large majority of the time, but once we've gotten past their security measures undetected, we will be there with you."

"Yes ma'am," he said once more, "I'll start preparing."

Her head lowered itself and she stared off moodily at the door, "The event will begin in two months, judging by our intel. So, for the time being, you will head underground and train."

The man shuddered, "Very well."

"I've had arrangements made for you. The task starts immediately." She said, and the man nodded.

* * *

**To Be Continued**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right, so, it's an AU. Could probably guess that from quite a few things going on here, eh? Story goes a bunch of different places, been working on it for a stupidly long time. Just wanted to do my own thing with the story and the characters, make my own thing out of the potential I saw. In that regard, you can think of this story as being like a very strong reimagining of both respective series as a resultant Novel-focused universe with a lot of different things going on and some flourishes and indulgences. Accept those as they come.


	2. Pride Of The Job

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Out on the prowl he goes, hard luck and vicious city waiting for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's sort of an experimentation with Gothic Fiction, so it leans that way more so than the Noir style I started with before. The style will shift more as the series goes, so there's gonna be that sorta stuff to watch out for, though a tangible element of the original Noir elements will remain.

Hidden from plain sight, out of anyone's mind, there stood an altar, a twisted altar of old-world disease

A darkened place it was. No good to mortals, they were incapable of perceiving such fantastic misery, but its current visitor was no mere human.

The figure stood unarmed. They understood this cursed place better than any lowly rat or creature of old. _This_ was the lifeblood of sin. Such as its nature was, it couldn't be reached by any man, it laid beyond the physical world. But this person knew how to breach such barriers. It only took a bit of concentration, a shifting of the tongue, and they thus accessed this sealed bit of hallowed doom.

The incantation was ancient, it wouldn't work by just speaking it aloud. The user must be tainted, empowered somehow. Nevertheless, the altar was a peculiar piece of architecture, a good mix of Cymric and Roman urbanity. The altar bled into a similar archway that continued on until it met a small nested area outlined by trees. The grass was soft and pristine, letting off a small amount of cold moisture. At the tree's roots were dark plants that grew entangled through their larger cousins. They were unnatural, vicious, and angular.

They shouldn't be able to grow here. Yet they are.

As the figure walked through the small little den, it came to a set of limestone stairs. Where these ended were a set of umber doors, styled like the entrance to an old Spanish castle. The stranger ascended the steps and came to meet the entrance. Letting down their hood, underneath the cloth, was a pale, brown-haired man of medium build. It was hard to tell underneath his cloak whether he was muscular or frail and the strange lighting made his face look indeterminate in structure. The doors were attached to a strange mansion without any real focus to time-period. There were elements from all kinds of cultures, many of them far older than the city that surrounded it.

It was almost like a citadel, possessing full-fledged spires that travelled up into darkness. Where the ceiling was, he couldn't say.

The man placed a hand on the surface of the door.

As expected, it was cold, borderline arctic. This didn't stop him, he embraced the rigid temperature like an old war friend. With a small amount of force applied, it gave way into a strange emptiness. The hollow consumed fear, bathing him in twisted glooms. It felt like someone had been murdered here. There was a smell of old books and mustard gas. Quaint.

The man walked inside. A pair of glowing red embers opened in the distant shadow, welcoming the visitor with open passion. Those eyes had all the seeming of a demon's that was dreaming. In the world of darkness, the spires seemed to clamor at its awakening, finally receiving a visitor after so long, a jolt of creation's energy. Yesterday no longer existed, meaning nothing. Prometheus's flame was all that they beheld here in the void, either one of them, the passing salute to tomorrow.

He staggered towards this black uncreation, the murkiness enveloping him, and the doors closed tight.

There was a violent sound of metal on flesh. A few thuds shook the ground.

A sudden, festering scream rung out, followed by several strained howls and the sound of sloshing blood.

It was some time before anything more occurred. Stilted silence.

Then, the doors opened, and out came a different person altogether. It was male, and possessed a well-muscled, athletic build.

His face was handsome and familiar.

He had white hair and a black coat adorned with snowy blue trim all throughout its perilous design. Black boots bound by leather straps came up to below his knees, featureless black slacks, and a long-sleeve black-turtleneck guarded by a dark button-up shirt filled out the rest of him. The look was unique and vogue in its own way, topped off with dark-colored fingerless gloves. He casually sauntered forth, a formal katana clasped in his left hand.

The Yamato.

Taking a moment to run his fingers through his hair, he pushed it back into a comfortably-spiked manner that appeared naturally feathered.

A foreign force seemed to cosmically style his hair during the motion. Very different indeed, from the man that had entered previously.

Bringing his palm down to observe it temporarily, he clasped it open and moved around his fingers, testing the tendons. It felt new, though it was so old.

He smirked and spoke to himself, "There's much to do."

* * *

**< *.*.*>**

* * *

Two souls met in carnal forge for every possible wrong reason

The office was empty now, the door locked shut and the open sign flipped to closed. From the back of Dante's adjoined studio apartment, groans of pleasure echoed.

Of the various noises, bed squeaks and deep breathing, it was her squeals that turned him on the most. Effective payment for the hunter was swift juicy, caught further in her claws. He couldn't care less.

The mere idea that he'd let this happen spun in him a black web that stuck cynical thoughts together. It detracted from the fun somewhat, but then, he remembered what kind of city this was. People did this all the time, it didn't matter to them the concept of morality. Lust was a plaything. He wasn't exactly alone in the concept. Besides, she was absolutely gorgeous, rocking that dress more feverish than any supermodel could dream of. Her legs wrapped around him, those red fingernails dug into his back, just the way he liked it.

She made occasional little whimpers when he drove a favorable motion, writhing around on the bed clinging to him.

It really was amazing what kind of inventive activity two grown adults could consent to. She'd promised handsome reimbursement. He didn't think she'd strayed from her word one bit. For her own sake, she liked he knew what he wanted. He didn't play around when it came to the things that mattered and she very much enjoyed that. If she did something, he went with the flow. There wasn't a moment where he didn't know what he was doing.

He knew what she thought before she came up with it. One thing he understood about her was that Christie thought she was God's gift to men, which made it particular fun when he made her squeal loudly with only his tongue. Where she now found boredom, he gave her excitement, and that alone made her addicted to his flesh. They complimented each other, her sultry approach matched by a relaxed masculinity, and god damn if she hadn't ever felt that from another man. Maybe that was because she killed the bulk of them before they got this far. Whatever the case, here they were.

Sweat poured out her body, held limply in his arms when round one finished. Given a few minutes and it'd be a go for the next bout.

Sure enough, it came, and they kept at it in all kinds of ways, ridden and flexible.

No words exchanged, no words needed. Paltry conversation shouldn't ruin this.

During the peak of the third inning, she rolled over atop his waist and flexed her hips, rhythmically rocking back and forth, her hands clasping his arched knees for support. She kept going and going and going, rolling her pelvis, rolling, rolling, flowing, rolling, squeezing and pressing. A surge combed through her at the absolute summit. Sheer heat allowed him to feel connected to something for the first time in years, almost as if he were plugged into a machine that just kept on running and never stopped. Life pumped in from his chest. He clasped onto the sheets hard, freeing the spread from beneath the mattress. She grabbed the back of his head, soon attached to her bosom, and ran her fingers through his hair, cradling him. Every little ounce of emotion he could spare let flow into her, each second of molten joy reached the spot that made her curvaceous thighs twitch.

Forget pillow talk, this was combat. She continued to hold on, savoring the sensation of him driven through her. The man rested back on the pillows, tilting his head into the headboard out of basic reflex.

Eventually, she followed him down to lay there, exhausted, on top of him. Warm, shallow breaths flowed in his ear. A few extra twitches and she slipped her tongue down his throat.

Her voice soothed out an expressive pleasure.  
The wails had made it all the more gratifying.

So, the final orgasm was done. Lightly, she pecked at his right cheek, and he returned in kind with the right impulse; some squeezes and a fiery kiss of his own when she wasn't ready.

The woman peeled off of him and laid beside the man, smiling to herself. Oh, he needed this something fierce, life wasn't complete without it no matter how much he tried to convince himself otherwise. She tasted about as brilliant as she looked, either way you spun her. It was a long time before either one said anything. Nothing needed to be said. They just laid there for moments on end. Good god, there were no words to describe it. Sitting up, she grabbed a white carton she'd thrown on his bedside table and pulled from it a cigarette. She lit it with the lighter she kept in her purse. Dante didn't have an ashtray, but he wasn't about to kick her out of bed for it.

"Smoke?" She casually prodded his inner-leg with her foot.

"Thanks but no thanks," he replied, resting his arm underneath her smooth back.

She laid back against the headboard, chest exposed.

"Shame. I would have thought you to be the kind of man who enjoys a good fag."

"Say what?" Dante looked at her apprehensively.

"Right, American," she said, explaining, "That's what we call cigarettes in the UK. Or at least we used to."

Relieved, the bounty hunter replied, "Ah. Yeah, no, never was a smoker."

"Righto." And, out of respect, she dumped ashes in an empty mug of his on the nightstand. "Anyway, I enjoyed this little chat, but now I must be going. You'll still take care of this?"

Dante was still feeling the endorphin high. It was almost like he'd shot up, the rush was so strong. She was a drug, _the_ drug. A powerful narcotic. Every single sin the Good Book said not to commit, she drove him towards. Worst of all, there wasn't a damn thing to regret. She was the lay of the decade, superb in every conceivable facet. He wondered how many men she'd done that little ear bite trick on.

"Oh, I got it," he assured her, "and even if I wanted to get rid of it, I couldn't. I'm stuck with it," he joked. "But what I don't have is your number."

" _My_ number? Oh dear, I don't plan to stick around," she giggled, some sadness attached.

Christie couldn't believe his naïveté. Such a simple boy.

"Eh, not to make it weird, but I kind of need it. Where you gonna go anyway?"

"Probably California. Why? You can't follow me there, it's not good for business," she said. She knew what he did for a living. Hangers-on often didn't last long.

Like he needed her to tell him.

"I get that. I just need your number so I can let ya know when the job's done," Dante said, and he sat up in bed, turning to his right to let his legs over the edge, "call it a professional courtesy."

He was smarter than he looked, possibly much more than she gave him credit for, Christie thought. If he handled her that way, she'd hate to see what he'd do to that smug bitch. Tugging on the man's strings was a thankless job. She need only to accomplish that which she was assigned for, and the ruse required a type of simplicity that would render herself a believable figure in his eyes. She thought it a great experience, to be able to get under another woman's skin and play her part swimmingly. A touch of resistance, and she had him.

"Good point," she said, "I think I might stick in town for a little while longer then. How long d'you think it would take you, eh?"

"Not very long."

"Good. Good."

"You can stick around here if you like, ain't nobody else is using it right now." He motioned around, and he felt her embrace over his back.

She leaned into his ear and whispered, "Thank you."

"Don't mention it." Dante smirked.

He stood and walked off to his personal desk. Definitely, a shower was needed quite badly after that little commotion.

Finding a piece of paper, she used a pen scattered on Dante's cheap nightstand to write down her 'business' number. Afterwards, the charming siren placed it on the bedside table partially under the lamp. The man sat down on his black office chair. He had a laptop, papers and various other items littered about on top. Looking over some supposed paper work, he read something about rent and another thing about 'serious property damage.' Like he cared. This was all the motivation he needed, as far as he was concerned.

"Hey," he heard her say, "Don't lose it, silly boy."

His ears perked up immediately, "Boy? That's not what ya said a few hours ago."

"Just a term of endearment, sweetie." Christie smirked.

"You got any idea where I'm gonna be goin'? Or am I just flyin' blind?"

"You'll be heading into New York. From there, I don't know where he would be. He sold off the house and moved in with her, I'm sure," she told him.

"Makes sense. I'll do a little digging later on. Right now, I gotta get a shower." And he left his chair, calmly walking off for the bathroom. He saw she'd already left the bed and scampered into the tiled room ahead of him before he'd even finished his sentence. He chuckled and walked in after her, hearing her turn the water on inside. Opening the glass door, he joined her for some wet fun. Shame he had to go . . . eventually. That was a good way to spend the rest of the day.

He knew he shouldn't have, but she pulled him in so tightly. He couldn't help but love every inch of that body through the rest of the day and night

And then morning came. Dante awoke in his bed next to his client. The both of them had fallen asleep at some point. He couldn't remember when. The man saw the clock read ten-thirty.

Later than he wanted.

No matter, he thought to himself, and he kissed Christie on the neck as he climbed out of bed and began his morning routine. He washed off and cleaned up in the bathroom yet again, then headed out to his room and dressed himself in clothes he cleaned in his washer and dryer. Behind him, the phone rang. He turned around and walked over to his desk. Sitting back, he crossed his legs and dropped his feet on the desk. The receiver flew into his hands. It was a familiar song and dance.

"Yo."

"Dante, good, you're awake," Morrison said.

"Yeah . . . yeah, I'm here," he said.

"What are you doing?"

"Oh nothin'. Just pinching myself," he waited, "Yep, this is all real."

A sigh came through, "Very funny."

"Yes thank you, I'm here on weekends."

"Your electric bill begs to differ," the handler replied.

"Ooh, nice shot back, Mr. Moneybags!" said the jovial Devil, "So what's up, whatcha want?"

"Well, I wanted to check up on that case I sent you yesterday."

"Oh yeah, the bombshell."

". . . Yes. I just wanted to know if you're handling it or not. There's a bit of liability here," he said.

"Liability?"

"The ID she gave me? It didn't check through. I'm not saying that proves anything foul, just be careful. If you've got a plan, now would be a good time to tell me about it."

Dante bit the right side of his lower lip. Well, he hadn't exactly thrown her out.

"Uh, well, if one comes to mind, I'll let ya know. I gotta run."

"What-" before Morrison could finish, the receiver hit the station, closing the call. Dante had thrown it back into position.

"Well, I'll deal with that later," he said and walked off towards his bar. He was glad he'd found a unit with one already installed. This place came cheap, thankfully, and he renovated it with his own bare hands. That was a long while ago now, he felt it a rather important change of pace for him, given Edgemere was one of the bigger cities he'd chosen to live in. A living is a living and a man's gotta eat.

Christie was awake. She walked out of his room, dressed up again. She was thankful that he'd washed it for her.

"Hey you," she said.

"Yo." He turned his head toward her.

"I'm off." She gave him a raunchy kiss for the road, "I'm just going to pop out for some fresh air. Don't think about me too often."

"It'll certainly be hard to stop," he replied.

* * *

**< *.*.*>**

* * *

Time passed, and the red mercenary grew troubled. Christie had left an hour ago, and the pleasant mood he'd felt earlier had become tainted.

He felt shame in himself.

She'd given him their names and not much else to go on. Of course, that was where the 'investigation' part came in. It was never as easy as it seemed. She told him Helena was a wealthy upstart on the east coast, further east than they already were. She had a New York residence but couldn't pinpoint where exactly. Bayman, apparently, would most-probably be with her, but she didn't explain how she knew that. Bayman had simply left her and didn't give an address or phone number where he could be reached. This was odd, though not exactly uncommon. Typical thinking for shitty boyfriends was to give the ex a taste of contact, then pull away and play mind games, hence the lack of knowledge where the man had gone gave him particular pause.

But another detail nagged at him. She'd mentioned a shared apartment, and yet, never told him the address. That didn't sit right with him.

Christie seemed to know relatively nothing. That was a nice bit of frustration on his plate so far, but thankfully he knew at least one person that could alleviate such a problem.

She was a dame to kill for, to coin a phrase. How anyone mistreated that, he'd never know. He couldn't get her voice out of his head.

Wasn't much to go on at the moment. He'd been given a task, given nothing to do it with, and he had to scrounge for details on the streets by himself. Kindness somehow tended to backfire on him most of the time. Still, she was a pretty damned good knockout. In a world like his, that was excessively hard to come by. He could look across the street and see the ugliness of another reality bleeding through into physical form. It was all around him, the other side of humanity. Some days he wondered what he protected them for.

Proceeding to slip his coat back on, he snapped his fingers.

All of a sudden, the plain looking walls in his office became ordained with numerous weapons and 'trophies' of his past victories. These included preserved demon heads, demonic weapons, and severed, sprawled out wings. A little touch of black magic had a hand in keeping these inhuman articles earthbound. He kept them hidden from mortal eyes with a special illusion he had learned in his youth. This was, at the very least, designed to hide from humans the hideous creations of his own world. Not that there were anymore left on earth, they tended to hide if there were. As far as he knew, he'd hunted all manner of creature to death by now, there couldn't be anymore left, not since his final days in Crow Castle.

In any case, snapping was the key, he could call this mirage off and on with the click of his fingers, as easy as lifting a glass of water.

Taking two pistols off his office desk, he periodically spun them in his hands like an old gunslinger. They were larger that traditional models, being oddly angular and specialized. Unlike the rest of his arsenal, they were engineered by mortal hands, but no less preternatural than his other artillery. Of the design, one was black, the other silver. Bearing a sleek, redesigned approach, they looked to be customized M1911s of a .45 caliber, engraved with designs of a peculiar, specialized nature. He was a pretty big fan of reliable gun-smithing. Of course, the model wasn't his choice.

"Ebony, Ivory . . . time to go to work, boys."

He gave one last quick spin and rapidly holstered them on the back of his belt in their holsters.

Strolling over to the wall lined with his personal armory, he looked for what weapon would suit him best. He called it the wall of arms.

Eyeing each one, the hunter ultimately decided on an old favorite, one he'd fought hard for: Alastor.

The guard of the stylized blade was polished black and shaped like a dragon's wings, its mouth wrenched open to breath electric flames. From the old drake's maw came a great and thick silver-steel brand. It was, at the very least, four to five inches wide. A thick, proud blade indeed. All told, the weapon was uncommonly sized, standing at four feet out of his total six-three measurement, and at least a few inches thicker than a traditional broadsword. Touching the handle elicited electric surges through his fingers, the sword literally sparking voltaic power from its handle, hardwired through his entire body on the way to desperation. The rush was addictive every time he made contact.

"You should do," the man stated.

Placing the weapon on his back, he was confident he'd chosen the right tool for the job.

In spite of the fact he had no shoulder-holster, it clung to him, needing him to survive. It was an inherent trait, one not of this earthen coil, taken from his paternal lineage. He snapped again. The shop returned to 'normal,' though he alone still perceived its true form. The weapons he chose were similarly rendered invisible to the average human eye. Thank Christ for that.

He got enough questions as it was.

So, it was time to set off for a preliminary investigation.

Usually, the process involved asking around town locally where he could find his target, though in this particular case, he really only had one destination in mind.

One man he knew of would most certainly grant him the knowledge he was searching for, as he'd thought earlier. These non-existent directions were practically useless. Ain't life grand? Maybe she'd planned that, just wanted to have his body for a quick release, then get out. Who was he kidding, even then, he knew his luck wasn't that good. He just hoped that her troubles wouldn't take him long to sort.

So he started walking. And continued walking . . . and he walked . . . walked, did he . . . and he followed that with even _more_ walking.

Edgemere was colossal, polluted, and filled with crime. Trying to meet up with anyone was a pain in the ass. The size of the city reminded him how small he really was, in the grand scheme of the things. He'd walked at least ten miles and was still in a rundown, urban hellscape. One neighborhood is just as good as another. He knew where the man was, it was only a matter of stamina.

"Why couldn't ya be fifteen miles back the other way . . ." He muttered aloud, "Friggin' psychics."

Unfolding all around him, people were dancing, partying. Unspeakable felonies were being committed in alleyways, pornographic films were being directed in seedy rooms, drugs were being consumed by the kilo, and he was just strolling down the road with an invisible, abnormally-sized electric dragon-sword on his back with a set of guns strapped to his waist. Sometimes he wondered if he'd died and gone into some sort of crazed limbo-afterlife. It would explain the constant banality of existence he now called 'Mondays.'

'But enough rational thinking,' He stated to himself.

He was going to get to the bottom of this little mystery. The more he thought about it, the more it bugged him.

Continuing to walk, the sketchier part of town eventually gave way to a polished megapolis.

A higher-class sect where large mega malls and casinos were built, it was a place where classy women drank liquor bought for them by rich, and optionally attractive, men.

Talent agencies were omni-present, big money was casually thrown about, and attractive celebrities abounded here. At least four film stars walked by him on the neon-lit streets. Why they were here was anyone's guess, there were so many special events being thrown here, it was hard to really keep track of anything. He wandered into a large convention center where a sporting event was being held.

It was some kind of free-form fighting tournament. It was like Las Vegas for the east coast.

He decidedly took a break from his jaunt across the city and joined a crowd huddled around a cluster of preview monitors. There, he witnessed a promo for an upcoming event.

"Are you ready? Because today's that big day where you; yes you! Can have a chance to fight me! Former undisputed world champion Bass Armstrong!" The man said.

He was a big burly fellow but intensely muscular.  
Nice idea, but did the guy have to be so cheesy?

Dante sarcastically spoke up, "If he's undisputed, how come he's a _former_ world champion?"

A disgruntled fan turned to him from the crowd and yelled, "He retired, asshole! He vacated the title when no one could beat him!"

"Wait a minute, I remember this guy. He used to be . . . fatter, right? Isn't he that silly wrestler who lost to the Bruce Lee gimp?" Dante secretly meant it every time he came across condescendingly.

"Who da fuck are you to talk?" The man turned and said, "You got a stick up your ass or somethin'? Did I ask you for your commentary?"

"I'm the dude who's doin' his job, you must be the other guy." Some humans were just pricks no matter what.

"Yeah, you like runnin' your mouth like that, huh pal?" the man asked him, stepping towards him through the crowd. "I'll make you shit your own teeth, you ballbag motherfucker!"

Dante smirked at him and started to chuckle, "Oooh, I'm shakin', I'm shakin'!"

The rowdy man immediately jumped at the hunter through the crowd. Launching into a tackle, Dante merely stepped away from his line of fire. The fan slammed hard onto the ground, catching mostly air. Twisting around, the guy saw Dante still smirking down at him. He rubbed his nose with his thumb, much like the aforementioned martial artist.

"You, uh . . . Ya need some help there, buddy?" He said, kneeling down to get to his level.

The others around them snickered lightly.

Not the type to diffuse the situation, Dante's aggressor struggled to his feet. He dusted himself off and assumed an inexperienced pose, his arms awkwardly looking for some kinda angle. He just looked uncomfortable. His posture was slouched and pained, not exactly threatening in anyway. He launched an awkward right swing at the silver-haired gunslinger. Repeating the same formula as before, he merely sidestepped the man and shoved his fist away as it travelled by.

Stumbling forward, the guy wound up smacking a woman holding her infant with his knuckles.

Left flabbergasted, "What the . . . Son of a bitch!"

"Don't talk to him like that, he's just a baby!" Dante mockingly spat.

"Fuck you, you creep!" The mother cried out to the man, smacking him with her purse, "This scumbag's punching me!" she said. She liked the way Dante looked. That certainly added fuel to the stranger's fire, and he smacked the woman away from him, earning the ire of all those around him. Such a peculiar turn of events for him, but beggars can't be choosers. The fan was horrified and focused his anger back on the bounty hunter.

Yelling at him while trying to attack again, the results were the same.

Dante merely tapped the man's forehead and he crashed to the plaza's carpet on his back.  
The true counter was lightning-fast, going generally unnoticed from those watching.

The man laid unconscious, broken ribs and a hairline fracture down his cheek.

All those who wanted to profile and pose for selfies had a good laugh as they started moving along.

Straightening up his coat, he turned around and heard a jovial voice, "Say! You got a lot of power in that hand. You should sign up."

Dante looked in the direction of the voice and saw a strange sight.

It was an African-American man with a green-dyed crop of hair cut extremely short, ridiculously small black-orange shorts, a white tank top tied up to show his midriff, and an effeminate kind of swagger as he walked toward him. This combined with sunglasses at night made the man all the more oddly flamboyant. He was a walking poster for 1990s beach attire, straight down to the ridiculous chin patch of facial hair, also dyed green. It was always the weirdos who seemed to want a piece of him. They never learned not to talk to strangers. It wasn't his fault if they couldn't take the hint.

"Uh, ahoy there," the bounty hunter said back, unsure what to make of the man. "Sign up for what?

"There's a rookie tournament goin' on tonight that could lead to, uh, some other things. Interested?" The man said.

"Ah, no thanks. I'm tied up with some work right now," Dante replied. "What'd you say your name was again?"

He kicked himself for asking, he didn't honestly care but the oddity of his appearance seemed endearing, "Name's Zack. I'm lookin' for some new blood in this town."

"Uh-huh," the hunter replied. "Well good luck with that."

He tried walking on but the manager made a pest of himself, standing in his way. Zack wouldn't give up so easily. He looked over the man's features and seemed pretty manic. Was he a dealer? The strange energy and the twitching nose certainly led to that idea, but he couldn't necessarily be sure.

Shiftily, the man followed up, "Ah, that's okay! There's still money to be made around these parts, I got another opportunity you may be interested in. Come on, whaddya say, huh? Let's talk."

Again, the man wouldn't agree.

"Heh, no. I'd love to . . . I guess, but I really can't. Trust me, my job right now is long term enough. I'm not in the fighting business," he stated, politeness weathering.

But Zack insisted.

"Hey, look, I know you don't like me. I can tell by the way you're lookin'. Just wanna move on, get on whitcha life and forget you ever heard o' me, but lookit, you don't understand, you just gave that guy a concussion and nobody even saw it. I mean that's freaky-deaky man! That's some powerful-ass, inhuman voodoo shit. Talent like that could be used to make a lotta money. Besides, you step in the ring, a man like you, even if ya get beat, you're gonna rake in offers everywhere, and every fighter needs a good manager. Women'll flock to you like sheep as well. They like a man that can bust some skulls and who's got a handsome-ass face like yours. It's a win-win for everybody, know what I'm sayin'?"

Dante gave him a second look-over. He could tell that Zack was largely sincere.

It wasn't exactly what he wanted to do, but he just wouldn't leave him alone. Besides that, it wouldn't be so bad to maybe help him out, the cheating husband and his rich mistress could maybe wait a day or two. It's not like he was expected to go kill the two that very night, planning a hit takes time . . . even if you aren't going to do the hit in the first place. He might as well be carrying written sign language, he was so badly misunderstood. Why should he waste time on this anyway? The world moves on, this guy was shaking him down too eagerly, it wouldn't net him what he wanted. One location remained on his mind, and he made a promise to take care of business, lest an odd fool like this get in his way.

After a brief moment of deciding, Dante smirked and put his hand on the man's shoulder, "Read my lips, no means no. Nice try though, I'd recommend pulling back for next time. Ya come on too strong."

Zack looked at him silently, looked at the gloved hand on his shoulder, then looked back up at the bounty hunter again.

He seemed to stand there for a million minutes, just bewildered the sales tactic had failed. Finally, he snapped his fingers in an exaggerated fashion with defeat, "damn."

Zack straightened up and maintained his spirit, "Thought you mighta been the one. Oh well, thanks for your time."

The man had this odd boy-scout-zeal, and continued off looking to poach others. What a strange guy . . .

* * *

**To Be Continued**


	3. It's Electric

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Old friends are hard to come by in Dante's business. Doesn't matter, Roger'll help the devil one way or another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First fight scene in this one, I went a little overboard with the imagery. Forgive that, was listening to a lot of Slayer at the time lol
> 
> I made up my own demon designs. Reason being because I wanted something alien and kind of terrifying that not everyone would get immediately, the violence on display additionally meant to showcase these new demons' deadly efficiency. I also experimented with the original Noir base again, retaining some of that Gothic flair from the previous chapter alongside some more medically-influenced stuff to kind of emphasize the impact and dehumanizing nature of some of the broader elements of a life fighting demons. Also, I was running out of artsy synonyms at one point XD.

Dante walked into a small downtown bar, his long stroll finally over. The patrons were all boring, looking like those heady jazz musicians that did spoken word in their spare time. It was a real quaint place, not too disgraceful, not too cheap. In the dim lighting, one lone pool table was highlighted, two hustlers playing each other in an endless cycle of one snake eating the other. Dante sauntered past them, over to the brown counter, then sat down. At least it didn't stink here, the general malaise of a traditional brewery absent from this particular establishment. If he could give it one thing, it'd be that it didn't smell like utter shit. That wasn't his only compliment, he noted that the girls who frequented the place tended to be of a home-grown variety, removed from the vacuous nature of the city clubs. They were humble.

The barstools sucked though.

All the walls were lined with bricks. There was a sense it was a real lived-in Chicago home, he thought. From the outside, it looked like one of those old midwest pubs.

Most didn't pay attention to him, the kind of vermin that usually slithered through here often held bizarre physical attributes one couldn't quite believe as being reality.

As he took his seat at the counter, he rested his forearms on the bar and ordered a shot of Hennessy, straight. The stuff tasted like hell but it supplied a momentary buzz, if only for a handful of seconds.

The bar patron directly next to him acknowledged his existence with a nervous smile and a hushed tone, "H-hey. What brings you down here, man?"

He hated the sight of him.

"Hello Roger," Dante said in an equally low timbre, "There's something I need from you."

Roger was a rather chubby middle-aged man. He was noticeably balding but maintained a ponytail and a graying goatee on his chin, wearing casual clothing you'd see in a different dive bar down the road. The man had history with Dante, a partnership based on strict work. In the early days, the man needed some form of aid if dared to throw down with evil. The abnormal track record they shared was formidable in the world of private detectives, you couldn't do better than their partnership. That was a long time ago, long before either had even found themselves cast to Edgemere whatsoever, and still, the old man couldn't remember exactly why he'd come to this city of all places.

There was a very cynical streak that stemmed through them both, and Roger knew seeing Dante again meant trouble.

"Uh . . . Well, what are you doing here?" The man asked his old partner.

"You gone deaf?" Dante said, looking at him with that same old condescending look, "I need somethin' from you. I got a case that requires a particular set of skills."

Roger squirmed and he grumbled to himself a swear.

"Can't help you," he said.

Dante chuckled aloud, "Just as talkative as ever I see."

His glass was served to him, and the man took the shot in his hand, considering its amber color for a split second before downing the course substance.

"You still running this place, eh?" The bounty hunter said, neither one looking at each other.

"It pays for itself," Roger replied.

"Good, good. So ya got it stable at least."

The ambient noises of the other patrons occasionally bothered Roger, he had a sensitivity to noise that rendered him unable to concentrate half the time. Distant hellos and marginal goodbyes hammered his ears and rendered his concentration shot. He grew fidgety in place and felt stuck almost. The noises clawed at his head like shards of loose glass.

"Um . . . You in town for long?" Was all he could muster.

"Nah, I'm kind of a resident now. Moved my shop into the Sands district."

Roger closed his eyes and felt his uneasy stomach lurch, "Uh . . . W-well, what-"

"Let's cut the crap, okay? It's disrespectful to us both at this point," the man in red spoke casually, "I got two people I need to find by the end of the week. You know what I need."

Roger gulped. It'd been awhile, things were only just then starting to settle down since the last time he'd gotten involved with the snow-haired hunter. He had such a way with words, the Devil's intent to get what he needed, then get out; always moving and never a care for others, at least not then. Nothing Roger could do would dissuade him at this point.

He leaned in towards his old business associate and whispered in his ear, "Look man, I _really_ can't afford to help you right now. It's late and I can't risk diving again."

Dante glared at him.

The man became frustrated, "Don't give me that! Okay? Look, I- . . . last time nearly flatlined me. I've got a business to run."

Dante gave him a firm scowl.

"Don't play with me, Rodge, you got a bar to run, I got a case to solve. We all got problems, but whatever you got goin' on here ain't none of my concern. I need a location, then I'll be on my way."

There was a harsh minute of silence between them.

The two were equally hardheaded, but Roger had a weak constitution, and that tended to give out quickly. Poor Roger, his own ability was so unique, but it was also the thing that was hurting him the most. As much as it pained him to sit and talk with Dante, a man he'd hoped he'd never meet again, the aging barkeep loathed the thought of using his 'gift' even more so. He kept himself sober and on the straight-and-narrow. Helping a lout like Dante was tantamount to relapsing.

But that god damn stare.

Roger relented, and he unclenched his hands.

"Alright . . . Alright, Dante," he said, exhaling, his nerves shot, "Let's go in back and see what we can find."

Roger reluctantly left the bar, walking over to a black door past the bounty hunter's left. Between the booths and the bar itself, the door stood as a kind of divider, separating employee from customer. It didn't have any signage. He knocked on it and the wood cracked open a slight bit. A figure in the shadows conversed with him for a small minute. The door then closed and a clicking sound was heard.

It unlocked itself.

Opening up, there appeared to be no person standing there.

They stepped through the corridor into a stark-white, sterile hallway, devoid of life. The air was different in here, it felt unmoving. There wasn't any kind of breeze to move the oxygen around. And yet, the temperature was cool, perfectly suited for human survival. The duo walked on through, and on the opposite end of the corridor, an identical black door waited. Coming into a small oval room, it contrasted with the dead-white passage behind them, which had nearly blinded Dante.

Alternately, the room seemed as though it was a tidied, warm office, a kind of private getaway. There was a circular desk in the center of the room, as well as a globe, bookcases, and a leather couch off to the side. There were a closed set of blinds that stretched from the top of the room to the bottom, held at the section of the wall directly facing them as they entered. As far he could tell, the dimensions within didn't add up with what he saw outside, at least the average view of it.

Roger went to the bookshelf to the left of the desk and grabbed a strange, dark-colored tome.

It was an old leather-bound thing, filled with many different tools and tricks of the trade, the medium's trade. Roger's ESP was unprecedented, and Dante took advantage of it a little too effectively, at times. The man was dead-sure on his life that it was a once-in-a-millennium occurrence, something so rare in a human you'd have to go looking in a parallel universe to even reach the next one. Or, at least, that's what he'd say till he found the next one.

Roger could . . . 'see' things; things a normie wouldn't see, know what a person shouldn't know.

Every time he dove, he emerged from that place weaker, changed. It warped him. It toyed with his perception of reality. Whenever he was there and he saw it again, he knew, he knew he would lose another part of himself. So small, yet so damaging over time. Roger looked pale. Did he really want to do it again? Fork over a fragment of his human soul just to help his old friend on a one-off . . .

What a joke. And yet, he knew that he couldn't say no.

"Nice place, just the same as ever."

Roger sighed, "I keep it tidy."

"I suppose so," Dante replied. "It's tidier than last time."

Roger grumbled and cringed, "The last time you saw it, there was a bus rammed through it."

"Oh yeah, that's what it was."

"You were the one driving it!" The medium complained.

Dante would've been listening had he not noticed a horned-skull nearby on the man's cabinet of collections. He recognized a few from past ventures, but the skull was new.

He saw a plaque that read 'Do Not Touch!'

Like all great thinkers, he chose to ignore the signs.

"-'Ey!" Roger yelled, smacking Dante's finger down, "Don't touch that."

The hunter merely stared at him, saying flatly, "Yes lord."

The embattled old man rolled his eyes and walked back to the desk.

"Well, I guess we'll get started then," Dante said.

Nerves overcame him, and the old man tried to sidestep what he knew was still coming, "Hah, you know what man, I don't really know. _This_ didn't go over so well last time. I really can't-"

" _That_ was last time. Are you the same person you were seven years ago?" The silver-haired man interrupted.

"Nevertheless! _That_ was still dangerous, I don't what'll happen this time," he grew increasingly nervous, though he continued, "Uh-Besides, I've got a killer cramp in my side and a huge headache, the doctor said it might be stress related ya know, so I can't really-"

"In the past year alone, working by myself, I have been thrashed through a building, stabbed and shot, fallen over a hundred feet twice, been run over by a city bus, and I've been incinerated. You want to talk about what your doctor says, why don't ya tell him all that and see what he prescribes, huh? At this point, I'm not really interested in arguin', bud. So, please, please, just this once, don't sit there and procrastinate to me. I just need you to find the location of one person. One person and then I'm gone. Her name is 'Helena Douglas'," Dante said.

A simple request. Rather than tax the medium to find two people at once, he figured he'd kill two birds with one stone and only focus on her.

In the back of his mind, he wondered what kinda woman would make someone leave Christie. They'd have to be even more beautiful, he'd imagine.

His old associate hesitantly looked forward, agreeing against his better judgement. He took out a large piece of paper and some paint, then laid them on the room's big circular table in the center.

Drawing a specialized insignia, he spoke aloud an old incantation in the witch's tongue, placing his hand openly above the paper.

Calling upon his his own internal fire, he spread about a valley in his mind's eye, a dark plane of existence where the sun was the moon and the grass was drenched with blood. He could smell it so vividly. The marking he made began glowing a bright purple. He spoke more in that dead speech, the light of the symbol growing in tandem with it, and then he started to seize. Controlled in an odd way, he forced himself to stay put as he concentrated every molecule of energy he had into his otherworldly work, and the sun shown itself a silver glow to his eyes, a giant burning ball of mercury in his brain.

And as he saw the brilliant luminescence, he was pulled in, reaching further and further till both his eyes saw that which was not his mind's right to acquire.

And, almost immediately, trouble began.

The entire building around them started to vibrate. Only when he ascertained the location of the female in question did images of a stunning blonde enter his head. She was absolutely amazing: her blue eyes, her tan skin, her physical thick features and long Rapunzel-esque hair. Her face itself was a classical beauty, an indicator of European perfection, flawlessly crafted to meet the basic desires of any human, regardless of gender. Other facts about her came into his knowledge with time, such as her height, weight, age, and place of origin— France. She was indeed a classy subject. The stunning part to him was that she held such power and authority, the kind he hadn't expected.

With that final drudging, he exited the confines of his mind and the vibrations ceased.

Opening his eyes, Roger collapsed backwards.

Dante caught him, but noticed new grey hairs.

Loosely, through his hazy stupor, he managed to tell him what he needed.

"She-! Ah-She's-! . . . She's at DOATEC's HQ in New York City, 233 Prospect Heights. She owns the place."

DOATEC? He knew that name . . . they were a massive company. A weapons manufacturer that also hosted a series of once-popular televised world championship competitions. The woman in question he'd been sent to kill was the owner of that company? That could, in no way be correct. This woman . . . whoever she was, she had to be some stockholder, or a relative of someone who managed the company itself. There wasn't any logical way that Christie could've meant _this_ particular woman. The more he found out, the less he understood.

Blood dripped from the old man's nose.

Despite the physical waring on him, Roger still managed to let out a half-hearted joke, "Wow man, you really know how to pick 'em. Your luck with women change or something?'"

"Well, I _have_ been meeting some different kinds of people lately," the hunter quipped.

"That's about all the humor I got for now, man," his friend said, "You gotta get outta here." It was as urgent as he could be, despite exhaustion.

Managing to force himself to remain awake, Roger tried to stand on his own but felt too drained.

Dante caught him. "Aw, what's up? No time to share a drink with an old friend?" The bounty hunter asked him.

"I sensed something . . . I don't quite understand it, but- but there was something dark, something familiar. It's a presence I think I've felt before but I just don't remember. It's coming here . . . no, I think they've already arrived. Dante, I think they were after you," he said, meek but still conscious. "I think they're here to kill you, man. You can't stay. You can't-" he faded away, body strain taking his exhausted consciousness off to rest.

As the man passed out, Dante laid him out on the couch.

He had a problematic look on his face. Alastor sent off a blitz through his back, surging a distress signal that only meant one thing. Something that wasn't human.

"Well . . . that's peculiar," Dante said to himself as a new tremble swept over the building.

Loud crashing and violent banging punctured the silence so loud as the structure's violent vibrations resumed in small fits. He turned and looked at the hallway door.

A heavy sigh escaped his lungs.

Well, if it was time, might as well be now.

Solemnly, the man trudged forward and opened it, overhearing screams and the tearing of flesh.

Eventually, scratchings at the door developed into a giant beast forcing its way into the hallway, black wood splintering. It had a dominant, broad chest and was inhumanly tall, with elongated, digitigrade ankles like that of the hind legs of a wolf, though furless and sallow. The head of it resembled a months-dead corpse with its lips pulled back by a metal clamp hewn into the flesh around its mouth, drilled in at the jaw just below the pointed ears. Those raw, crimson gums smiled at him. Dark tan skin and concrete muscles larger than any bodybuilder could dream of filled out its taught being to the point of splitting the flesh at the color bone, held on only by stitches weaved through. Gleaming red eyes shined hostility, and immense, seven inch long claws replaced the fingernails.

Rags that used to be clothes shrouded the beast's lower body, and on its elbows were short, dulled spikes.

Held in its massive hand was the head of the bartender who'd served Dante's hennessy, stuck; frozen in a state of morbid suffering.

"You're just plucky, ain't ya?" The huntsman quipped.

He snapped his fingers and the weapons he carried materialized.

The demon squashed the head into bloody chunks of bone and grey matter, roaring forward as the hunter grabbed Alastor's handle, prepared but not drawn from his back, the man darting onward through the white hall. As man and beast grew closer, Dante released the blade from its resting place. He slashed forward and cut its chest diagonally. Though a thick, long wound, it acted as though it was merely a surface scratch and the big behemoth continued forward, attempting to pinch his head and neck in its long grasp.

Jaunting up, he put a boot into its knee, using it as a stand to launch himself, and the hunter flipped vertically over the creature. He drew Ebony.

Two shots fired as he went along. Both bullets made impact with its left eye and encroaching talons respectively, stifling the brutish monster for a brief moment.

Rolling through the air, he landed sturdy and pushed all his forward-momentum in reverse. Propelled off the ground toward his target, the hunter-inertia slashed at the flesh of its neck. Mindlessly, the roaring beast clawed wildly at him, hoping to crush some part of him; however, it mistimed the lunge, only catching the edge of the man's coat instead. The electric blade came forward and its head sliced clean off. Projected into the air by a fountain of blood, Dante aimed his drawn-pistol back under his arm and shot a solitary bullet.

The statically-packed projectile blasted its way through the stream and right into the creature's dull skull.

Disintegrating on contact, nothing but blood remained, staining the bright halls with vivid cherry. A servant till they fell, and they all would eventually. This, too, disappeared. It turned to ash, blowing as dust in the end. Before it was all gone, Dante stepped forward and ran two fingers across the smeared wall on his right. He placed both in his mouth and ingested the residue. From its degenerated corpse spilled a small degree of power, demonic blood that when applied to weapons and flesh made them infinitely stronger. Thankfully, it didn't taste too bad, or else he would've forgone that process a long time ago, relying only on age to grow his power instead. A crackling surge came over him, mixing with his own inner strength to become a part of his core.

He walked out through the destroyed, clawed-up door into the desecrated tavern. Dead bodies were crunched into the ceiling corners, suspended in place by sticky masses of human mulch around them. Intestines hung from the fan blades above, and mutilated corpses with ripped-open faces stared back at him. The abominations in the room were all of the same ilk as the one he'd slain. Brutes they were called. They were all demons, creatures from another realm that had no business being here. He thought he'd gotten rid of their kind, yet lo and behold, more had manifested here. He wondered why. So many years spent hunting, just to find out they'd been wasted.

The gory reality came back to him. It was hard to ignore. The Brutes were gorging themselves on pieces of human gristle and shoving organs into their foot-wide jaws.

He knew not a single person survived.

Indifference was his reaction to the emetic prospect.

"Didn't I kill you already?" He asked.

Only growls met him.

"Oof, all that human meat's stunk up your breath." The man waved his hand in front of his face, "Seems like you guys got no respect for privacy. Out in a public forum like this, such disrespect. You wanna get after me that badly?" He asked in an insulting tone. Derision was his middle name.

They ceased their bloody feast, looking up toward him with strange zeal. They were the size of gorillas, brutish and uncaring.

Those smiles . . . well, those were something he wouldn't get out of his head for a while. Smaller human body parts stuck out between each razor point, caught in their teeth like a steak dinner.

"There's the enthusiasm I like! Let's rock," he said as they all charged at him.

A flurry of gunshots denied that motion, knocking down the ones who'd chosen to go air-born. Dante quickly switched tactics the very second the first demon managed to get close enough to him, slicing laterally with Alastor's fine edge, and tearing into the left side of its waist. The blade stopped halfway through. Enraged, the Brute took a rightward swipe at him. He blocked this with his left arm, gun still clasped. The claws impaled his forearm but he bore the pain with calmness. If there was anything mom taught him, weather the storm. Veins pumped with tranquil fire, sucking darkest clear.

His mind remained cool and collected.

The demon visibly reacted with confusion, using what little intelligence it had.

Dante readjusted his grip and twisted the thick brand, causing the demon to hiss and spit carnage. It staggered back and a quick secondary demon came to the beast's aid, but Dante forcibly jerked his arm backward, pulling the monster he was tussling with toward him. The talons still embedded in his flesh began shearing through his limb. The second monster wound up striking the first's bicep. Brawn tore through that thick mountain like a scalpel, ripping tendons apart. The fibers were weakened enough that the slayer was able to rip it off entirely, only using his weight.

It howled to the roof.

With his forearm free, he pointed Ebony at the other creature and gave a smirk. He fired another suffused shot through it's forehead, striking it mid-swing.

The bullet was hungry, obliterating the scalp and the contents within. Subsequently blown back, the creature toppled on top of its charging ally, fallen.

The third brute stumbled away, forced back by the weight of its comrade. The body dissolved and more blood poured out.

Now one-armed, the first came at him, gunning for his head, but the hunter ducked downward. He lurched sideways, relinquishing Alastor to prop his body up with his right hand.

He thrust forward his heel into the hilt of the blade, digging the weapon further into its abdomen, before then pushing off the ground.  
With cat-like grace, he was back on his feet like gravity didn't matter, but the beast was undeterred, and it lashed at his right shoulder.

He grimaced as it drove its other talons through his flesh, straight down to the bone.

With bloodshot eyes, he shook loose the detached limb and jammed his gun back in its holster, then seized Alastor with both his hands. Twisting all the way to the left, the edge of the blade faced skyward, and he drove the broadsword upward, plowing through the savage's chest. Tugging on its hand to pry it free, the beast finally managed tear its hand out of his shoulder, suddenly a strategic disadvantage. Breaking off some of the elongated claws in his arm, the beast forced its hand to its chest and pressed the palm against the blade, preventing it from rising further. Dante let go of the handle and batted off the spike embedded in his upper arm before drawing his matte-black pistol again, razor-quick. An unpowered shell struck the beast in the shoulder. With it distracted, he then plunged his right thumb into the demon's eye, pressing in as hard as possible.

Driving the finger in was easier said than done, these things were still a bit more durable than he gave them credit for. Eye-gouging was always an unpleasant tactic, tearing at the lens' surface first, then making it further in till he reached the optic nerve. Scraping his fingernails against the side of the demonic flesh, he ground his teeth. The creature reared its head back and roared in pain.

It stood straight up and he was lifted off his feet, kept attached to the Brute by only his hand, which burrowed further into the side of its skull. Moving and thinking faster than any human possible, Dante shifted his thumb slightly and caused its head to twitch to the right, swinging him around to thrash an encroaching fourth beast in the neck with a kick.

Partially blind, the first Brute kept staggering to the right while the mercenary then aimed back and shot the fourth in the same spot he'd hit. The bullet lodged itself inside its sensitive throat.

Flailing its remaining arm, the one-eyed Brute attempted to rip him off, but the demon-hunter brought himself back in and shoved his foot on the tip of the handle.

Arched live a sideways V, he pushed off with all the strength he had, and wrenched his thumb out of its socket, forcing Alastor completely through and out the backside, no longer stuck. Flying, the blade rammed right into the recovered third's abdomen. Lifted off its feet and blasted into the wall, it was stuck there hovering mere inches off the ground, blood flowing liberally, the beast struggling and struggling, desperate to pull itself off. The demon killer flipped backwards and landed easily, the mutilated demon faltering, and the bounty hunter sought to finish off the combo. He instantly lunged forward off his feet the second they touched down, and, shifting his knee upward into position, smashed his joint into the beast's crooked face.

The impact was comparable to a freight train crushing a plastic pipe, its entire head cracked and disjointed of itself, growing misshapen and distorted from the traditional features. Smashed back into the ground and barely alive, the thing struggled to get back up with only one arm and a smashed skull. The knee forced them apart, with equal energy creating a tremendous amount of reaction the other way. It overwhelmed Dante's forward motion, and he zipped back across the opposite side of the bar, ultimately landing on a flimsy, circular tall-chair table, and was immediately attacked by the fourth and fifth brute's.

They were annoying as they were durable. Shoving the barrel of his pistol into the palm of the fifth beast's flexed metacarpus, he pulled the trigger.

Blood spatter against the thing's face. It stepped back, it's hand smoking with a new, giant-sized hole. The man stepped over and dodged the fourth's two-handed wallop, and it destroyed the right side of the table instead. Ivory was already in his hand. He stuck the barrel right at its temple.

Bang.

Pieces of bloody brain, cystic sludge and demon skull plastered itself against the wall.

The fifth returned but suffered a boot in the side, though Dante's foot bounced off. Refusing to move, it grabbed him in a giant bearhug.

Jostling him up off the teeter-tottering table, it tightened its hold, and tried to crush his back, but the man resisted with a much firmer outward pressure, flexing his muscles with a smirk. Enraged, the beast threw the man at the wall. He hit the partition, then fell on his side. The hardwood flooring cracked against his head and a broken beer bottle lodged itself in the left set of his ribs. The beast rushed at him and attacked with a leaping stomp.

He answered with Ivory.

Firing off a round through the creature's feral foot, the bullet passed into its knee, and Dante rolled back against the wall when its leg came down just an inch away. The limb collapsed from the full-weight impact atop the injury. It shifted instinctively into a crouched position, clutching the joint. A hand touched the beast's left shoulder. Dante rammed Ebony forward through its teeth, breaking past the worn-down enamel into the mouth.

The back of its head burst open, folding out like a pop-up book illustration as smoke trails billowed out.

He stood on his feet and wrenched out the bottle.

The first Brute, having finally gotten to its feet, tooled around through the bodies before managing to wrestle itself upright.  
Dante sighed. They just don't learn. He dashed forward faster than Usain Bolt, disappeared in a jarring blur.

Appearing to teleport, the man reemerged in the air before the demon, and he hammered the jagged glass bottle downward into its forehead. Enraged, it battered the man off with its lone arm, staggering backward as he rocketed back to the wall. His back crunched into the building's sturdy bricks, but he just as quickly dislodged himself again, and the two stared down one another. The beast had a special hatred for the man, for all that it had suffered from him, and the man plainly hated demons himself, which may have explained why he hated himself half the time.

It barged forth, thrashing its arm like an ape, swinging the bicep forward for a close-line. Matching his enemy's speed, he came rushing forward.

When they were three feet away from clashing, Dante abruptly dropped to the ground, sliding on his knees underneath its rough attempt.

Coming forward after its arm completed the motion, the beast wondered where its prey had gone. Dante twisted around into a smooth stance, continuing to slide a few inches more before coming to a complete stop, the back of his heel bumping against a torn-apart chair. He pointed both guns and fired relentlessly at the demon, its regenerating body chewed through, inch by stubborn inch. Forty-six rounds pumped through the scabrous flesh. Eventually falling to its knees, it collapsed, half the physical form liquefied into butcher's meat. Yet, it still drew breath.

Behind him, the third demon finally pulled itself free after a long, downhill battle with the wall. Seeing the devil hunter in front of itself crouched, it tried to attack Dante from behind.

Spinning round, the hybrid hooked his leg into a wheel kick. Its mandible broke clean off, sent flying through the air, landing on an unbroken plate as if served. It staggered, jawless.

Alastor, still lodged in its stomach, erupted pulses of lightning on command when the man took hold and flushed the weapon down and out, scorching the flesh viciously. With the weapon once more in his possession, prepared at his left hip, held in his right hand, he slashed forward. He severed the top half of its cranium, the flat of the blade cleaving horizontally through its head. It collapsed onto its knees and fell off to the side, lifeless. What he'd cut remained balanced atop the steel. They disintegrated near instantly, the weapon left soaked in the blood that was soon absorbed into the very metal itself.

Turning back, he faced the last one standing.

He let the tip of the blade rest on the floor, reclaimed by its master.

Blood splashed into his wounds, fragments of their power becoming his own. Pointing the blade up at the sole Brute, its lower legs had collapsed into pure mounds of rotten flesh.

Both of its arms were now missing.

He didn't think twice.


	4. Come Ruin and Rapture

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mistakes don't matter on the job. And Dante never stopped working on account of a few nasty setbacks. He knew better than that.

Diego let out a grunt as he received a brutish knee to his gut. He stood his ground, retaining his footing somehow. Catching his opponent's followup elbow, he retaliated with a straight fist to Tina's jaw.

The blonde broad was putting a mighty hurt on him, the challenger facing off with her for some lousy competition that wouldn't likely pay him enough.

The man didn't hold back anything, but she wasn't as affected as he hoped she'd be. Good genetics, he supposed, if her father was anything to go by. She came back, determined not to show him any weakness. Countering with a neck jab, she caught him off guard, and bought an opening for more punishment. Clever. Next came two whipped kicks to his chest, though the blows were easily avoidable. He felt his blood boil.

"-More resilient than I thought," he muttered to himself, clenching his fists.

How could something so beautiful be so vicious at the same time? Eyes without a face, he thought.

He came at her with that bitterness, just wanting to hurt something.

Attempting a sweeping haymaker, the bruiser missed his mark considerably, but he wasn't aiming. Near simultaneously, he threw out a hook kick to her core as she focused on his fist. She felt her stomach compress against his work boot, the force knocking her back some. What a pain. She came back even more fierce, launching a powerful right hook that lead a series of quick strikes. Anticipating this, he knocked her rebuttal's down one jab at a time; she must've thrown twenty punches or so. When she least expected it, he grabbed her forearm and pulled her forward. Shoving her entire body past him, Diego struck her upper-back with a vicious forearm bash.

The wrestler had a delayed reaction. She felt the pain moments later and toppled to her knees, trying to hold that part of the body that hurt so badly. He looked at his nonexistent watch.

Proverbially speaking, her time was up. Emotionally speaking, he was dead again.

Amazingly, the wrestler got back up, pulling herself off the floor with a surprising gusto. She threw out her arms and readjusted her stance, but she was pretty much back to normal. There was a big tenacity behind that southern grin, those tanned cheeks and that muscled big-boned physique. In many ways, she was just the opposite of him, in others she reminded him too much of himself.

No time to think of that.

She continued that attack. A girl like her, she'd never submit. He knew it but he didn't care.

It was fun, never mind the fact that she sent a chill up every other man's spine.

"Ya gotta have more than that, son!" She exclaimed as she spat out a small gob of blood.

He looked down at it for a moment.

"You're insane." He replied as he squared back up.

Tina grinned and hurled a fist at his open face, crunching his nose and forcing his head back. She followed with a powerful right-cross. Swiping his cheeks, she dazed him, sweat flying off his troubled head. Stumbling a bit, he was wide open. He let out a grunt and she punted him in the side with her left leg, her combat boot slamming against his ribs. Through to the opposite side of his face, she swung her right elbow down. Thankfully, she got lucky, swerving right into his jaw. Driving a front-kick to his mid-section, she battered him back, but that was where Diego drew the line. He regained his wits, the pain on his face waking him up, and he stood his ground. Zealous, the woman jumped in the air and twisted around, trying for a flashy roundhouse. He caught her leg and shifted his whole weight forward, hauling her off across the ring. A stellar launch, she flew quite some distance. The woman hit the floor hard, rolling and jostled around.

This punk was a real grappler but she knew she wasn't down yet.

She'd landed quite brazenly. Took her a minute to realize it.

She could feel something torn in her side, a muscle. Brilliant, what an injury to get right now. That'd make resting later a lot more difficult.

Yet still somehow, she stood back up. Determination was a powerful drug and she was its primary user. Sprinting like a boar, her face reddened, the woman lunged for his throat.

He braced for impact, knowing he could probably counter whatever grapple or punch she threw his way.

This girl took off from the ground and flexed her body perfectly straight, feet-first. A flying missile-dropkick. The bottoms of her boots crashed into his face, her cleats themselves scraping against his forehead and cheeks. Out went the lights. Diego was a strong man, nothing really fazed him, but those legs crashing on his face affirmed for both himself and the other's present that Tina was no fake.

He dropped to the ground and shook his head repeatedly, his eyes going haywire and his sight blurring.

Then blackness consumed his vision.

Tina Armstrong stood up, the winner.

A panel of three judges presiding over the fight began discussing amongst themselves and quickly decided that she'd won. It was a unanimous decision. The crowd was large and the event was a televised mixed martial art tournament independently organized for the masses craving another spectacle. There'd been a long absence between DOATEC's all-star championship series. She'd said yes on account of the fact that it pissed off her father, a good but misguided man.

Bass was his name, and though he wasn't in attendance due to the final throes of recovery from back-surgery, he was most certainly watching. Ringside, in her corner she trudged over, tired and beaten but effectively the victor. Medical personnel swarmed Diego's unconscious body, actively working on his injuries and beginning the creation of a prognosis.

After that last blitz to the face, both his eyes were shut tight and his cheeks were bruised. He was a powerful fighter himself, but the one mistake he made was underestimating that girl.

They carted him off on a stretcher.

Tina herself was escorted off to the dressing room she hated, away from the booming crowds and cheering fans, where she could grab her things and change clothes. She'd worn this black and red number, something a little more glammed up than a night like this was used to. She de-stressed and cooled off, relaxing on the subsequent bus that came to take her back to her hotel as her management team kept enthusiastically encouraging her to take more fights. Finally, when it was time to sleep, she showered in her room and laid down on the bed, hoping to just shut her eyes and sleep it off. She was a cowgirl at heart, poppy and rustic, think and southern. As beautiful as a goddess, she often felt lonely. What a night.

Her eyes hung low as the TV played images she soon stopped paying attention to. The light seemed to dim and her vision darkened. Eyes shut.

Then the phone rang.

"Jesus Christ, what now?" She said, reaching onto the nightstand and grabbing her cellular device handy, commanding as she answered, "What."

"Tina, baby, it's Zack."

. . . She shouldn't have answered the phone.

"Oh. Hey."

"I got good news, really, really good news. And you can't say nothin' till I get it out now, alright?" He said.

With an exasperated sigh, she replied, "Sure. I got nothin' better to do."

"There's a new tournament goin' on, they want you, exclusively, to fly out and participate. Asked for you by name and everything."

She paused to consider Zack's words, and her eyes popped open.

"Ya mind repeatin' that first thing, darlin'?" She asked him.

"These guys want you to fly out to this island and compete for a new championship," he told her, "All-expenses-paid, glossy resort and all, they want you to be one of the headliners."

As much fun as the old days were, she really didn't have the stomach to tolerate this anymore. Blasting her knuckles out on some honky-tonk's face nightly, something stupid inevitably happening that got her thrown out of it, or personally violated. She was ready to branch out now, try something that didn't involve putting her good genetics and father's reputation to use as a journeyman in the ring. Earlier forays into other media proved hard to accomplish. Critics were harsh, but more and more wrestlers were breaking through now, these days were lookin' up.

"Thanks but no thanks. I think I've had my fill o' tournaments fer a while," she said.

"They're offering a three million dollar deposit, non-refundable, as a sign of good faith. The whole purse is twenty-five million."

Fuck.

That was a lot of money. More than she had in the bank currently.

"Why did they get in touch with you to find me?" She asked him, the last thing she was curious about, "I got a manager already."

"Ah, well, you see, they came to me not to manage people, but for talent-supply. I happen to know a few fighters who kick ass, you top 'em all. You're the first person I called," Zack explained.

It all made a vapid sort of sense, as if the logic in reality simply just gave out and she was listening to a child hitting their head on a wall over and over again. Of all the stupid and improbable things that had happened over the years though, this sounded the least ridiculous. Hell, an island tournament? It beat the hell out of resurrected dinosaurs and evil samurai spirits, and she knew both those were a thing at some point quite a long time ago. In any case, she was skeptical but interested.

"I'll have to think about it," she said, "I need reassurance it's not gonna be some Fyre Festival 2 or nuthin'."

"I was gonna speak with your management about it, get that three-mil sent over to ya right-quick, but I wanted you to know about it first. Be professional and all. Besides, you compete, get all that money; even if you don't win the prize you still got twenty million dollars in the bank, the sky's the limit after that," he said. "This _is_ a legit contest, you'll get back some pretty mean credibility for yourself. If you win the whole deal, you get more prizes too. How's eight more zeroes sound? All I need is a signature."

He made a compelling argument.

She sighed. Credibility as a fighter was overrated . . . but she knew it was something she needed if she wanted to go forward.

With a heavy amount of consideration, she finally answered him, "Alright. I'm in."

* * *

**< *.*.*>**

* * *

Bayman worked by himself in an old cabin, hidden away in the obscurity of Wyoming's wilderness.

There he sat, working away at his physique. Striving as hard as he could, he sat on a bench doing abdominal lifts. He crossed up over one way to his right, held himself there, then released back down, maintaining a slow negative, arms crossed and clasped at his sides. Before reaching the seat, he came back up and crossed over to his left, held, then came back down just as slowly as he finished his final rep. Resting on the slanted wood arch he'd built out of some old tree, he rested on a tarp laid down over the bench to absorb his sweat.

And he sat there, panting. The new training regimen certainly wasn't easy. Not that he wasn't already in great shape, he simply sought to place himself in 'tournament-mode.'

His little area to work out was set up to the left of his cabin, gifted to him via his employer under a new alias using an oversea account, to avoid suspicion.

You could never be too careful with who was watching. A fake termination and an obscure residence was bound to ensure that no one was going to ask questions when he showed up.

He'd be entered into the tournament by an assigned handler, a man named Jack, some other freelance manager without relation to the company. He understood why he was chosen for this task, he would be the most believable candidate to betray his employer to any brainless punk that looked at his resume. Entering without suspicion would be easy now, it'd go without any sort of question from MIST. But something about it didn't make too much sense the more he thought of it. If the organization were initiating a new entertainment-based product to compete in the markets, what was it for? Why had they done so? Were they trying to broadcast it live? In which case, it'd be done for funds, but funding for what? The other dilemma was that if they weren't being televised as Dead or Alive had been, then to what end would hosting this tournament serve? And if they were making moves already now, then that meant MIST would already know that they'd be coming after them, it was a simple reaction that was easy to predict. DOATEC was rather morally obligated to pursue some sort of justice against their enemy.

And yet, as far as he could tell, they hadn't done a single thing beyond the organizing of the tournament. He knew hosting it on the island of origin would cut down costs, a centralized location a better place to hold such an event rather than the more ambitious Dead Or Alive series.

Now wasn't the time to be thinking. He had much to do if he was going to get himself back into competing shape. A soldier's body was honed for prolonged combat, now he only need to sharpen it further to take punishment. Stamina and durability were key factors to his game if he were to pass himself off as being a genuine contender. Helena had sent for a box of his things and had them secretly moved and delivered to his new residence. Inside were combat fatigues and a recreation of his old orange vest and red beret. How touching.

It felt good going back to his roots in a way, but he was just looking forward to when this charade would end.

Until then, he'd have to just grin and bear it. Sitting up from his self-crafted bench, he walked back inside, shirtless, and began preparing to wash up. Dinner wasn't far away.

* * *

**< *.*.*>**

* * *

Dante zoomed across the room in a split second, driving Alastor through the final demon's mouth. The technique shredded the skull and severed it from the mandible. He called that one 'the stinger.' Liked it well enough. The brain-case went sailing, propelled by the kinetic force generated, and, during its descent, the man timed a perfect roundhouse. Leg slamming into its skull, the head cracked open, hurtling into a wall, where it burst apart on impact. A single eye remained stuck to the surface by its root, the tail hanging limply.

Its iris stared out at the room, left haunted by his hatred.

And the bar lay in ruins, a quaint place torn apart by demonic hands, their origin not known

The blood slowly disintegrated. Only human remains still endured.

Dante stood and calmed himself as he placed his weapons back in their proper places. He looked around at the senseless carnage. Foreign demonic blood remained yet to fuse with his body. Bonding into his cells as he relaxed, the slayer almost instantly felt stronger. He'd need to be, considering this had even happened at all. A remaining hatred intensified. All demons were supposed to be dead everywhere. He'd seen to it that they were exterminated, driven further and further underground till he knew they were destroyed. It was the reason he started taking on human problems in the first place

He thought he was done with this shit.

Still, this furthered his question of why now? Why in public? There weren't supposed to be anymore left, not on Earth at least. Demon's, by nature, sought control through seduction, lies, deceit. This was why their lords, the ones with truer sentience, kept them at bay, often only wandering in rural countryside's to strategically kill human's less developed in smaller communities. This was also why demon lords tended towards manipulation. They preferred strategic possession and nuanced malevolence, relying on devil-worshippers far and wide to keep themselves well-fed. They hadn't been publicly active for over several some-odd centuries, being forced underground by humanity's rising.

The master of these puppets must be someone well-learned of Daemonic laws.

It figures. It was probably an overzealous priest or a demonologist gone mad. He wondered if they'd somehow broken past the barriers between realms and brought about the darkness of that world once more. He himself was troubled by the notion. In his youth, he started off weak, weaker than you'd think. To elevate beyond his original means, diablerie, or the consumption of his own kind's blood, was the fruit of his own self-hatred. He'd grown quite rusty in the years of downtime, when they hadn't walked the Earth.

Thinking about someone like himself, someone stronger than those in the past that he'd managed to defeat, it imbued him with a ripe rage he hadn't felt in a long time.

A katana cut through his mind. Only a memory.

His fists tightened, and the darkened bastions of the nighttime cityscape outside suffocated his light of hope. He left the morbid scene temporarily, returning to the now-dimmed hallway. He walked forward through the dark door, still intact, and came back to the oval room. Roger was sitting exactly as he left him. He woke up and looked around. The room seemed fine, yet he appeared confused.

"Man, why are you still here?" Roger said hazily.

"Six brutes is all, they were meaner than any I've seen in a while. The place is a bit destroyed, though. You should probably set up shop somewhere else," he answered.

"What!?" He asked, upset, ". . . How bad is it?"

"Ever seen a zombie film?"

Roger recalled his hatred of gore with much anger.

"Gah- Jesus . . ." he said, practically moping, "Alright, lets _not_ see what happened this time." And again, he attempted to stand.

His legs, though not broken or damaged, buckled beneath him and he slumped back over.

"God _d_ _amn_ it!" He shouted, "This is what I get for helping _you_! You're a fuckin' cancer, man."

The shouting unnerved Dante. He tended to forget of Roger's mortal nature, despite his power.

"Do you even realize what this does to me!? You've left me a dead man walking, you ungrateful, insensitive prick." His anger was righteous. "You always took me for granted— fuck you!"

Pained and aging, the medium spat vicious insults in his ears. Dante had talked him into doing something profoundly stupid and bad for his health. His friend could only look at him with pity. The hunter felt disappointed in himself. He let down an old friend. And it was entirely his fault.

"I'm sorry," he said.

Roger continued to struggle as Dante couldn't figure out what to do.

"You— uh . . . You wanna head to the hospital, man?" the hunter asked. It was the least he could do for the guy, considering.

"What do you think!" Roger said, criticizing Dante as his friend moved in to swoop him up, "Unbelievable."

Dante hoisted him up and supported him over his shoulder with Roger's arm, walking the man to the door and through the hallway. The hurt in that old body became appalling.

"Damn—" The old man came to a stop and grabbed at his chest, a tear of pain falling, ". . . I-I can't feel anything below my chest!" Roger said, breathing drooping heavier.

His lungs were weakened and he suddenly looked very much like a man in his late sixties, his health failing him. It was hard to imagine it, but he was only two years younger than his silver-haired friend. The devil knew where he'd hid all this time. In his hands was a tool for the job, why wouldn't he come around looking to use it? He supposed it was something he could understand, but still. Roger's health wasn't worth this horse shit. Dante had made that mistake too many times.

They walked down the hallway and Dante told him to close his eyes. As they reached the corpse-infested lounge, Roger did so. Nightmares were something he didn't need: better he didn't look. Didn't stop the smell. Emerging outside, the hunter realized that the nearest hospital was . . . somewhere off west from them. Roughly twenty miles, judging by the air around them. Beyond perfect.

"You got a car still?" Dante asked.

The embittered old man shot him a familiar look.

"You think I'd give that up in a city like this? It's the only safe way to travel half the time . . . It's the old Camaro in the back," Roger replied.

Roger felt his pockets and luckily found the keys. Dante gently set the man down by the front door, taking the things, and hurried through the alleyway to the back parking lot. Emerging out the other side of the passage, he found an old black nineties-styled Camaro, vintage. Red trim adorned the sides, decal'd exactly to the old man's desires. It was a relatively inconspicuous design, all things considered. Blinded by remorse, Dante hurriedly got in and started the car. Pulling around the front, he got out and moved the psychic to the vehicle. He opened the car's passenger door and promptly placed Roger in the seat. Dante darted behind the wheel and shut the door. The engine roared to the skies and they sped out to the highway.

It kicked into various different gears and back again as the motor adjusted itself, Dante rushing as fast as he could to get down to the nearest hospital. They traveled for so long. He almost wondered if his sense had been wrong. Roger endured two coughing fits, spitting up blood the second time around. Dante could see the light that came from the soul of all living things, and Roger was no exception. It was becoming dim, fading by the second just a little more.

He broke so many laws, speeding over 120 miles per hour, at least. The speed limit be damned.

The hospital appeared on the horizon, finally. The lights on the front read St. Nevermore, and below that, 24 Hour Emergency in red.

When he'd pulled in, he walked inside and waited to admit the medium into their care.

The elderly man's state had deteriorated greatly. By the time they had made it to the parking lot, he'd already lost the ability to see.

Liverspots formed within minutes on his forehead as they searched for a spot. His hair had, slowly but surely, turned completely white.

The years just kept coming. Seemed to be he'd only had one more dive left in him.

When he was brought in, the hospital staff assumed that he was Dante's father. That had a positive effect, at least. They tried to take him for medical assistance immediately. They kept him waiting in the lobby for about forty-five minutes after that. He paced back and forth and sat still, wondering what would happen to him. Then, a nurse came to him, and with regret, she told Dante that the man had died from a myocardial infarction, an acute heart attack.

And like that, another piece of him, another piece of his history . . . lost. He blinked at her as she walked away and left him with broken words he couldn't say. He merely sat in silence, guilt weighing down his shoulders as he realized he was the sole fault for the man's death. He felt pins push through him like a doll of voodoo. On his own terms, with his own hands, and his own words, he'd gone and hurt himself again. Why did he keep doing that? He only meant well. He knew karma couldn't have been that kind to him. Christie walks in, Roger walks out. The perfect trade-off. Just when he thought all was fine he was feeling pain-free, there came those pins again, jabbed in.

He focused in on the sounds of the city to distract him.

A car ran a red light and crashed, only minutes away.

A couple were arguing on the street while another pair were getting kinky in a bathtub in the apartment above. They were bathing together after having known each other for just two hours.

Elsewhere, a man pulled himself over on the side of an avenue, his interest being in the cleavage of a young woman who negotiated price with him. Police made a bust on a few different people. They didn't like that and shot back. Birds sung their song, flocked about, killing small insects and rats. A hundred dogs barked their heads off at things human eyes couldn't see, and at a coked-fueled nightclub, the soundtrack was booming and people were snorting all manner of things on bathroom counters.

The booming sound of an intern scratching down information on paperwork at the desk broke his focus.

He stared at her plain brown hair, her dark skin, her kind but tired face. He darted his eyes away before she could look back.

Searching for the clock he eventually found on the northeast wall, he saw he'd spent ten minutes spacing out.

A moment later, he got up and left, silently returning to the Camaro, only one place on his mind: DOATEC HQ - New York City, 233 Prospect Heights.


	5. Swanmate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Off he goes, always on the move, never caring what he leaves behind, let alone what he leaves for others.

Dante drove for hours down the highway. He witnessed the sunset and the moon rise, and he passed the state-line.

Further still he drove down the road, out through the countryside. He often forgot that New York was far more than just the city itself, there was almost a fantastical land that existed outside of it, left to the common man to explore. It was a vast landscape filled with green trees and many wild animals, though nobody would've guessed. All of that couldn't erase from his mind Roger's fate. It was a strange karmic twist, the death of his old pal by his own hands, he hadn't yet stopped to consider that.

The thought haunted him. No matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't get rid of it, Roger clawing at the back of his mind as he headed up the interstate. So much time he spent traveling through this country, he noticed that the only thing that ever stayed consistent was the lack of greenery. Everything was overbuilt and overcrowded out west, the only time he ever saw plant life was through the midwestern or the eastern countrysides. Otherwise, mother nature was usually choking and dying on a lack of lifeblood beneath its roots. The inconsistent rain and deprivation of the lands during the season led to a sickened drought, the lands dying as much they were trying to survive out in other states like California.

As he continued down the open road, he saw the sun beginning to rise over the deadened states.

Gas was low and his stomach decried the need for food, so he pulled off the freeway and into a small sleepy town. It was a suburban area, not too crowded, but just around the corner from it. He observed ample amounts of healthy joggers, all being led by an enthusiastic woman. Why the hell were they jogging at this time of night?

'Whatever floats your boat,' he thought to himself as he searched for a gas station.

He found himself nervous about being confronted by anything further, be it human or creature. It was an odd sensation, seeing Demons again after so long.

So he tried to reassure himself, 'This'll be simple. I just pull up, fill the thing and then quickly leave. Stay silent and maybe something won't happen to you for once.'

As he found a Circle K, he pulled into its deserted lot but found it was open. He walked into the convenience store and grabbed three drinks and some snacks.

He presumed they would be cheap. He presumed incorrectly.

Walking up to the counter, he was met by an old Chinese man with white hair, though unlike himself, it was from age rather than biology. He wore a strangely formal outfit made of foreign silk that mixed white, red and green colors together. He didn't remember the name for it, but it was one of those kinds of ceremonial gifts. He had a semi-long beard that was thick, appearing to make him infinitely wiser than he actually was.

"You want to buy ten candy bars, five bags of chips, four hot dogs, three waters, and a coke?" The man said curiously, his accent bleeding into every syllable, "You have friends with you?"

"Nope," he said, quietly wanting to avoid conversation. "It's just me, myself, and I. I'm passin' through, need enough supplies to hold me over."

"Okie-dokie, that will be 34.51." He said.

Dante nearly choked up.

"Wait, whoa, whoa! Thirty-five dollars for some food and drinks— that's a little much, don't ya think? How'd the price even get that high?" The man stared in disbelief.

"No, okay!? That is price, you pay it!" The old man said, growing instantly angrier.

"Hey, calm down okay, I'm just trying to say-"

"You come in here, act superior, you pay for the food and gas, then leave! Okay? You take it further and I throw you out!" He pointed out the door, a threat.

"Jeez, all right, here's your damn money," Dante said, murmuring lowly, "Twist my arm a little more why don't ya . . ."

"You get your gas then go away!" The old man yelled, childish and belligerent.

Sadly, it seemed he was quite stereotypical in terms of racist cliché's. There wasn't a thing he could do about it. People like this just exist in an iron bubble. He wondered to himself what an old man in a nice set of clothes like that would be doing tending to a gas station like this in the middle of the night. Did he own the place? More than likely. As Dante walked outside into the cool night air, he angrily filled up the car, musing to himself that, 'If it ain't demons, it's jerky humans.'

Eventually, the tank began to near full capacity. As the computerized numbers flickered up into an ever-increasing number, Dante began to feel uneasy.

He felt a tingle crawl up his back and realized it was the blade again. Alastor was sending pulses through his nervous system.

Almost as soon as the meter finished and the pump clicked off, he saw a study in crimson splatter all over the window of the convenience store, and his blood ran cold. Another second later, a Brute crashed through the pane of glass, leading a charge of five in all that emerged with it, all together made from dust if not thin air. They liked to travel in packs. Blood-soaked saliva dripped from its maw.

Removing the nozzle from the tank, Dante roughly placed the metal handle back on the pump itself and grumbled.

He turned toward them and took one step forward.

"Gettin' tired of this 'in public' thing, boys. Can you do me a favor and shimmy on over to an alleyway? You can fight each other. I'm actually tryin' to get somewhere right now," the man said.

Much like the last batch, they responded with unintelligible roars, rushing towards him. Time for questions had passed.

The man grumbled. What a pain. He blasted forward past the pumps, snapping his weapons back to tangibility as he went, charging forth and embedding the blade downward into the lead Brute's hand with an overhead swipe. The metal drove between its ring and middle fingers, splitting the flesh. With his left hand, he'd grabbed Ebony from his holster and charged Alastor's power into the weapon. Upon collision, he aimed and pulled the trigger. But he hadn't aimed at the beast in front of him, rather, he fired off at the right eye of a Brute encroaching on his left flank. The head exploded instantly, bolts of blue lightning jaggedly cutting through the air and striking others, and it then collapsed to the ground in a heap, left to evaporate.

Enraged, the first barreled its arm forward and the man ducked below his enemy.

The man tugged on Alastor and dragged it deeper through its other palm, further deepening the divide. He used gravity to his advantage. With a half-hearted heave, he wrenched the weapon free and spun right on his heels past a disembodied haymaker as he dragged his blade around in a circle. The blade struck the demon's jaw and sliced off the mandible completely. The swing continued broadly, and it lead easily into another beast, leaving a deep gash across the chest.

He circled the blade in parallel windmills, shutting down counters and making new incisions. A fist came hurtling at his face from the side, the jawless demon rearing its beaten mug once more, and the hunter shifted two steps forward in the blink of an eye. It missed him by a country mile, and as he traveled, he leapt over the other attacker's shoulders before him. Passing by, he placed Ebony at the base of the skull and fired. Bye bye birdie.

And he swirled, planting his legs straight together into a missile aimed at another Brute's chest. With a full dropkick, the thing crashed to the ground.

The detective flipped backwards vertically and balanced himself on his gun. One brute behind him had snuck up to kill. Supported by the tip of Ebony's barrel flushed perfectly on the ground, he used momentum to kick out both his legs, one-two, into the beast's head. Flipping back forward, he came down with a brutal stomp on the toppled brute's neck and defended against a series of slashes from the remaining foes with Alastor's thick steel, rolling away just when the demon below finally attempted to wreck his legs. Standing up instantly, it thrashed about after him and swung at his cocky face. In defense, he shut it down with effortless slashes, fencing off the thing till he jammed forward his foot for a high kick and battered the brute away. It landed on its backside and the man stung forward slashing another's bicep as he leapt atop the creature again and battered its face with a boot heel.

With agency, it slashed at his legs and the man pushed himself off its rotten form well into the sky. Reaching the apex, he chained his power and behind him summoned a strange red platform made from runic symbols. His feet touched it and pushed off, the man forging ahead as a blurry streak across the sky above the curious demons.

His hands clasped the roof of the gas pumps and he pulled himself up. Somersaulting, he landed his feet on firm metal and turned back as the savages joined him.

As soon as the fourth Brute came forward, he stung Alastor forward and wrenched the blade into its neck, tearing it from its feet. As they traveled, Dante briefly moved past it and jammed his knee into the upper back, pushing the blade further in out the back of nape. As it landed, Dante stabbed the blade through the ceiling and pinned the beast in place, lights below flickering as the blade electrically surged.

As it struggled to free itself, the fifth Brute of the horde landed atop the platform and lunged at the man. Dante twisted around and attacked, sans sword, with a violent fist to the throat. Shockwaves rippled through its flesh and all that momentum came to an abrupt halt, choking. Before its feet could even touch the ground, he went to work, hauling punches like a cold machine-gun. He borrowed strokes of the old Wing-Chun style, whatever pleased him. Dante attacked mercilessly. Suffocated, the demon felt its ribcage collapse in seconds as the half-devil struck so hard that the flesh on its back split apart.

Pounding at it rigorously, he tore apart its entire mid-section, fragments of bone splintering outward like bullets. All the while, it scratched at its own throat in a vain attempt to breathe. After scraping off multiple slabs of flesh, it finally pierced its windpipe and regained the ability to inhale, but the cost of this distraction rendered the spine within its underbelly exposed, Dante's fists painted a cerise color.

The creature fought to stand. There was so little muscle left in its lower back that its body began to wobble back and forth.

It managed to gain balance, pulling together a few ligaments, and it tried to attack with the only thing it had left, its mouth.

The teeth came forward and bit down on air.

The supernatural bounty hunter dashed back in fast, colliding against the giant savage with the palm of his right hand smashed into its forehead.

From nowhere came a blast of vermillion fury, a visible ring of red bursting forward. He dug his feet into the metal roof, warping and heating around his boots.

Stunned in place, it stayed still and he plunged his other hand into its open mouth. He grabbed a hold of its canine tooth, large and overdeveloped, and forcibly ripped it free. He circled the tooth in his hand like a switchblade and stabbed squarely on the top of its crown, driving it in as far as he could. Its glassy eyes reeled back. Dante turned with his right side and swung his whole body into another vicious reverse-roundhouse, denting the demon's skull as it fell to the side and disintegrated.

He then felt a sharp pain down his back. The Brute he'd impaled struck him with its claw, the sword still stuck through its throat.

Red-eyed, the man whirled himself around and grabbed Alastor's hilt. A pulse of rage tore through its eyes and ears, electricity surging and the head exploded, the stump left behind blackened and smoking. With the blade free, he rested it upon his shoulder and watched it fall over. The beast was no more.

He scanned around looking, and now there was but one Brute left. Jawless and ragged, it staggered around, dazed.

"Hey!" He yelled at it, and it turned toward him. "Come get some."

Riled, it lunged atop the roof, face still mangled and warped, rushing at him full bore with an open clawed-hand as he turned his back.

A gun shot rung out and it staggered back, a bullet hole through its palm. His back remained turned, Ebony drawn over his opposite shoulder. He circled the gun and holstered it just as quickly as he'd pulled it out. The man faced it, resting the blade down off his shoulder and tore ass toward it, shifting mid-movement with a horizontal slash into the bloodied demon's mid section. He sliced through the ribs but met resistance from the liver, gummed up inside through grease and ragged leather. Grasping his throat, it clenched its hand around his neck and hoisted him up from his feet. Residual power from his weapon of choice crackled at his fingertips. He grasped both hands on its forearm and surged demonic lightning through the limb. The veins swelled and tensed, bursting, boiling, bubbling, then breaking the skin open in gouts of steaming red, flowing at once across white gas station roofing.

Enraged, the demon cringed backward and held its bursting appendage loyally, the arm contorting at the wrist and enflamed from the elbow downward.

Pale hands gripped Alastor. The blade was wrenched further left, slicing through foul innards, and with a shift of his footing and a secondary shove, the blade tore free out the other side.

The torso sailed through the air, propelled by a sudden release of pressure, and streams of scarlet drenched the devil hunter, reigning in blood. Time froze in this moment.

The blessing of demonic power never tasted so sweet.

Howling retook his attention. Bisection alone wasn't sufficient enough for death, of course.

He felt a strange sensation course through him as he saw the top half of this poor dog float down to earth, slamming on the tarmac beneath the metal roof of the station pumps. Regarding Alastor's frigid steel for a moment, he flecked the weapon to the side, and the blood disappeared, absorbed into the flawless metal. As devils fueled his own power, so too did the blade grow stronger with each taste.

Leaping down to solid earth, his feet hit the black top, superhuman bones refusing weakness. He stared to the side at the broken glass, a mess of a body left behind inside the store.

Regret consumed him.

On the death of the old man, he remarked, "Even though he pissed me off, I feel bad that old man had to die. No one deserves that."

The bounty hunter walked away from the gruesome mess, leaving it to grow cold, the lone straggler no longer a priority. He didn't know if he should even kill it. The Brute, once so mighty and savage, now laid on the ground squirming, attempting desperately to somehow reach the remainder of its body. The only thing he could do was to turn away from it, this horrid thing that refused to die. It growled to the heavens a cry of pain as it crawled, leaving behind a trail of its own bloodied innards.

And after he take those few steps away from it, he looked down at his feet to wonder what he should do about it. For a moment, he turned his head back with a thing resembling sympathy.

"Can't say I don't even feel the least bit bad for ya—"

A torrential onslaught of blackened blood came rushing at his back, spewed as vomit from the creature's gurgling throat.

Demonic skull cracked apart just one second later.

With a smoking gun in his hand, Dante replied, "I don't feel _that_ bad."

Any gore that had splashed on him vanished, soaking into the closing wound down his backside as the corpse vanished, leaving behind almost nothing, save for dust in the uncaring wind.

Looking around, he saw that the night sky was thinning, soon to cede control of the sky once more to the sun. No time to stop and wonder why, it was time to close the distance. DOATEC HQ. How bizarre, this moment. No interlopers nearby, he was sure, not unless they tracked him down some other way. He was certain they couldn't have found him under fairer circumstances, perhaps a ritual or sacrifice had been employed, he knew of crooked men who might've once held the power to mobilize these dark forces that pursued him. But most no longer drew breath, and the dark forces displayed here were taken to be extinct.

Not unless someone knew more about him, about his kind. Could there be a break in his knowledge? A gap, an oversight, someone he missed . . . multiple approaches could be utilized, but who and why?

In any event, he relished this new strength.

"Now this is my kinda birthday present," he said as he felt new power flow through him, rolling his shoulders back. The remains absorbed through his injury strengthened him tremendously, a rush greater than any other high. This blood was much more powerful than that of the others.

Looking back at Roger's car, he capped off this experience, "And the pumps didn't even blow up this time!"

* * *

**< *.*.*>**

* * *

Further on the devil-hunter drove, putting death out of his mind.

Claustrophobia was not a word he would have normally used to describe the open road, but this highway was mostly dead, empty and sided by walls made of brimstone.

As Dante drove down the freeway, he fiddled about with the radio, flipping from station to station. Nothing good was on. Well, radio had been crap for many years now anyway. Traveling down past the county of Putnam, he reached New York City, and he came to a point where the walls on each side opened up to the surroundings. And there he saw it, the big apple. Sleepy cars driving everywhere, a scenic view of the Atlantic, where crashing waves rolled against the eroded coast line. Sparkling water from the sea was darkened by murky clouds above, a storm was rolling in. Just peachy.

The image was something he'd not seen for a long time: peace. Strapped in, he was feeling confident that he would gain answers soon.

He munched on a candy bar, observing the clashes between the clouds and the clear blue sky that still hung gloomy from the rising sun.

His knee was a useful tool when performing other tasks, using the joint to steer himself correctly. What he saw calmed him as his natural ability threaded together his clothing once more. He had learned to improvise quite well due to the nature of his life. A few stints in a high-security mental hospital makes anyone good at skirting the rules. One of the demonic traits that he'd cultivated out of necessity was repairing things of his that others broke. As his clothing patched itself together, he gazed out again that shore. The storm carried on as far as the eye could see.

He wondered what life as a fish must be like, apart from dangerous and slimy. The freedom of the open ocean always appealed to him, the somewhat-clean air and the eons of unpopulated space, an empire of chance. What wondrous things might he find out there? Away from demons, away from humanity, even. He'd always wanted a vacation, and this time alone gave him a slight moment of pause. Of course, he'd have to contend with all the horrible things that lived beneath the surface.

He'd make his mind up sometime. For the moment, his focus returned to the task at hand— find Helena Douglas and the man dubbed 'Bayman.'

Scanning the cityscape from afar, he found in the distance what he so desired to see.

The DOATEC headquarters stood some kilometers away in the distance, the tallest building in Prospect Heights, an expansive neighborhood of Brooklyn. Success was in his reach.

* * *

**< *.*.*>**

* * *

But where the red son of Sparda found success, his failure festered. Looming within the sanatorium still beyond the remains slowly decaying was a shadow.

Roger's corpse sat on a cold steel table within the basement of this old institution. A hollowed out metal boiler was where he would be going, the terms of all deaths; cremation.

As the body languished there for hours in silence, the skin grew paler and the joints stiffened evermore. The ailing pride of a once-young man gifted with incredible abilities fell victim to a curse of vanity, one which an old witch had cast from the fibers of his own hubris. Not that it mattered what, who, or even how, he was in life, not anymore. This was where his life had taken him, brought to the crack of doom out of loyalty. Should he have helped that old friend, whose silver-haired charm and bedazzling blue eyes swayed the will of even straight men?

What a pity this all was. A bar destroyed, profits sank by the machinations of another. Soon too, this despot had strung the psychic along. From the corner of the darkened room came a sudden gust, a strange zephyr of crooked make. Its chilling touch froze the condensation dripping off the door handle. Roger's vivisection had been fruitless, and now his organs laid naked in jars and metal bowls, divorced from the cadaver that once held them dear. From nowhere did the wind come, and from nowhere did a stranger emerge, a dark blue fissure cracking open inside the poorly lit, abandoned room. Out from this puzzling vortex, a man dressed in Death's black cloak came, a Japanese sword held relaxed within his icy hand. Blue eyes peered out at the place from skin paler than snow, the entity invading a position on earth it was not meant to.

He looked around, this strange man did, and successfully, near-instantly located the body of Roger.

A calmness overtook him, black boots striding slowly across the dusty floor. The want of a nail lost this man's life, an unfair trade.

Rest assured that the deal they'd struck would soon undo this unjust transaction, for the bonds of death even could not hold the man in black from hunger within his chest.

Coming to stand above this old, depleted vessel, the visitor held out his gloved-hand, extending each slender finger out as far as they would go. An incantation of ancient source, Greek, escaped emotionless lips in a whisper. Energy gathered at the palm. From this vapor of un-life came the construct of a pallid blue sphere, toiling within its confines a tormented visage that persisted to burn.

By inhuman hands would this lifeless man return.

The swirling globe plunged into the old heart, merging with the shriveled organ.

A terrible scream tore through the air. The raising of the dead spurred moans from the depths of Hades, Roger sitting right up on the table. Every moment of pain a waking-nightmare, he was trapped in this broken body, face pained by the unbearable chill that stung at his flesh, and the organs vital to his survival that laid before him, separated from him. He looked frantically at them and brayed for their return, begging with a swallowed tongue. Then came the coughing, the furor of a throat filled with disinfectant and cotton, his mouth sutured shut to silence the screaming.

Beside him stood the calm intruder, staring with deadened eyes, void of affection or warmth, lacking any kind of ability to empathize with this screaming corpse.

"Hello, Roger," the black words lingered in his ears like worms.

The man kept the time of every second that passed, staring without feeling. The wails of unholy things were always musical to his ears, the mere sound of it reminding the man in the darkness of his nature as a being stronger than life. The untimely death undone, this new deal would be served out to his own ends.

"Wonderful work, pawn," he said, his specific vocal affectations ringing with trademark morose patterns. "You had him eating from the palm of your hand."

Tears rolled from the dead man's eyes down his decaying cheeks.

The youth stolen, and his life destroyed, he had been promised a dream beyond this hell.

"Ah yes, on the matter of your reward," he remembered, "I know this isn't as ideal as you may have thought, freedom from your curse comes with . . . hmhm, some drawbacks."

" _Mmmm! Rrrrrmmmmm!_ " Roger screamed.

The man in black smirked and the sutures were ripped from the poor soul's lips. The cotton ruptured out from his throat accompanied by whatever fluids remained in his old husk of a body. The pain across him soaked into the marrow. Each little stitch that had pierced his skin, every vital organ ripped from his body. He groveled, shivering forcefully. Sanity whittled away. The horror of the truth remained.

The voice that he spoke with was shredded, "This wasn't what I wanted!"

A chuckle assaulted his ears, and the stranger replied, "No, no it wasn't. But your soul is mine now, you're not even close to being done yet. The deal was a newer, younger vessel. But I never specified the shape that would take. You must be under the impression that I was a merciful god. Alas, how terrible is wisdom when it brings no profit to the wise? Welcome to my domain. Your body will grow to hold a devil's power, coursing all through its veins. The prime condition for descension . . . is a human body in putrefaction. I will make you suffer more than you ever thought possible, betrayer."

Death spoke to him cruelly and he took pleasure that suffering would he render onto the revived one.

Now that the task was over, setting the gears in motion, it was time to punish his servant's crime.

He would not have a mortal guilty of disloyalty serve him unless this behavior was stamped out, useful in time, but not for future.

"N-No! That wasn't the deal, you promised! No one owns me. No one owns me!" He chanted, "This is bullshit!" He yelled, voice beyond broken, but the man in black only chided him.

"I've gifted you borrowed time, what matters the form that you take? You sought life beyond life, have I not held my word? You _will_ enjoy a long existence, my friend."

And he smiled at him, frost-bitten eyes piercing the human's mind with a world of arcane torture.

"No . . ." Roger squealed out in vain as he stared back to the wall that stood opposite his own, the dark beauty that infested his eyes rotting away at his humanity.

Hovering before him one foot off the ground, there he saw a dark beauty, a woman of sinful stature. She whisked him away, pulling on his mind by the frayed ends to lead him on through the dark caverns. Her supple flesh masked her twisted nature, the soul of evil dwelled inside her vessel. And, drawing steadily on through the dark corridors, a mad grin drew itself on her face. The memory of her arrival made Death grin, his work to mold her having served him well. She belonged to him now, no one else. In time, this succubus-lover of his would become his bride, ensuring the misery of the grand universe, he just needed a few things first . . .

Her altering eyes glowed ever-larger. Her malicious fingertips burrowed through terrified stitches, moving through the mortal's body, changing whatever she felt on a whim to accomplish. He was unable to defend himself, a daunting fright overcoming him when she embraced the wriggling human in her arms and forcibly kissed his lips. This devious vixen, with her shifting crimson hair and those skin-tight clothes of sin, was a demonic princess, but of course, not just any.

She was a true succubus, a female demon plucked from another world, another hell in spacetime. Able to corrode or kill humans with the touch of her lips, or any other 'bodily fluids,' this was Jezebeth and her distinct trade. As her saliva sank into his being, bat wings emerged from her back, and he began to writhe around in pain, his skin beginning to blacken and the organs within him beginning to dry out and crack.

Slowly, the pain drilled right into his soul, the orb betraying him. As the veins glowed blue, the body flung up and crashed into the ceiling tiles.

It trembled, flailing inhumanly as his bones crunched.

In futility, he attempted to resist, but found his flesh plastered. And with his struggle came the first tear, his arm forcibly pulled down by a devil's hand, ripping him from the ceiling as his flesh stayed behind. Soon too was this limb joined by others, tearing off of his skin and bones, his demented cries for his mother's tit an embarrassing display of human weakness, and so they kept tearing. The left side of his face and even his hair, it all came apart, torn off him by forces he couldn't perceive, left behind clinging to the ceiling. Then next came his back, the final crumbling pillar of his downfall.

Crashing back down to the sullied laminate, Roger could barely move, his back an open red mass of exposed sinew and twitching tendons.

What flesh he had left then swelled to robust proportions.

He heard the clock on the wall for the first time— tick tock, tick tock.

Time passing by, rending nerve endings, turning feelings inert, crushing his mind, crushing his spirit as the hair began to fall out. One by one, the brown little pins hit the ground, incinerating, grinding to dust as new arms, spread out and sprawled from the open back, grew far-reaching and crooked. Exhales turning to the bays of a dog and the croaks of a pestilent frog, the skin bubbling under his eyes to brand him the child of extremity. The body, it contorts, breaking bones into new positions against his tortured will. So warped was he, the smashed dreams of his new life taken for the sins of treachery.

The ripping, the tearing, the crying and the bleeding.

Pincers burst from the mouth, jutting out like mountains from faults. As his whimpering dragged on, his tongue bitten off, he became moot and dead, yet still living.

The back broke open revealing ugly spines while rubbery dermis crumbled to the floor, macerating without end.

Gender being robbed from him, he grew and grew till the room would not hold. Hands turned to hooks, and the hooks turned to beastly claws. Legs surely deforming: the clock running out of time. New limbs exploding out from blubber, coated in scorching acid, armored and flanked; twelve new friends to play with. In its belly, insistent aching transformed sullen yowling into high-pitch screeching, its voice that of a banshee.

Tearing away, scratching and gouging, the soul of this monster was undoubtedly burning.

Dread did not begin to describe the monster before them all. Shadows appeared above. Foundation's rupturing and vestiges of humanity disintegrating, second by second.

The clock stopped.

Stripping away the fibers, the arms splitting large, pincers carving through the chunks and out to become mountainous plates all over. Dust and corpses ground to a pulp. In place of primate legs, a new arachnid shape encroached, stinger in tow. The mandible came apart in four, ripping open, humanity destroyed entirely. From this pitch-black maw surfaced a bellow of savage waves. Eruption of volcanic ash, rivers of boiling blood rupturing out from the umbra. Only heat could filter through. Cells broken down, once so structured, turned to quietus as the inferno grew.

And in the place of a human sprawled forth something horrifying, unknown.

Colossal, white, and orange with avarice, the noble friend turned demonic thing. And it began to crawl. An inhuman, massive, armored and scaled torso was attached to the gigantic undercarriage of a spider with thick, destructive arms. At the chest was a glowing blue gem, a crowning feature of wonder to lure in the weak flesh. Memories remained, bloodied tears flowed from its draconic eyes.

The dark mastermind behind this degeneration, this unholy destruction of the anatomical form looked upon his creation with a sickening grin, glad to see the satanic uprising of the fiend.

At his beck and call, Death held the monstrosity in his hands, but now just wasn't the time.

It was ready to lay its spawn as the Devil and his sexual companion drifted above the carnage.

Mortal remains, burning cars, destroyed rubble were witness to the apocalyptic laughter only Satan could bring.

Beholding the beautiful madness, his aims were growing closer. It ravaged everything in sight, blasting victims with the gory, scalding embers, leaving them petrified, slumbering statues.

But far be it from him to let loose this impossible leviathan, so huge it defied the laws of physics.

The time for destruction on a larger scale would come soon enough, one city block was all he could afford for now.

While the creature moved back towards its master, called to him by starvation of directives, Death and his snowy hair, so high above, raised his hand. Palm facing downward to the ground, he surged a wavelength that harvested the poor souls, absorbing the power of the damned as though it were the blood of devils. It was like candy adding itself to his sweet collection. With a vivacious, murderous look on his face, the Devil snapped his fingers, and the newly christened Rilgan disappeared along with the gothic temptress, and he himself, Vergil; all three together like a family.

What had happened here in this corrupted place was unspeakable. Malevolence had left its mark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lotta Horror, Action-Horror most especially during these early chapters. It's a very strong undercurrent of the work because the first part of the story is sorta more of a Neo-Noir reimagining of the DMC series original Survival Horror tone within a contemporary setting, and I won't lie that a lot of the recent Resident Evil remakes have been influential to the tone of some things as they're presented here and in further chapters, although I do put my own spin on things, hopefully.


	6. They Call Me Redgrave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She was a beauty alright, he never saw a dame so hardy on her own terms. And she never saw a Redgrave so compelling as he.

New York was loud and obnoxious. The people who lived there never let Helena forget it. She sat watching the news report, all telling of a practically bizarre terrorist attack that had occurred in Edgemere a mere hour prior. The city was a good distance west of her own glorious east coast metropolis, New York. Specifically, the streets of Brooklyn, where this company was brought up from nothing but an immigrants imagination and some sketchy investors. Over the pipe came the news.

She really couldn't believe what she was hearing.

Deaths of at least one hundred people in the effected part of the city, on top of four-hundred-twenty-three reported missing and an unprecedented three hundred left injured in the wake of the destruction in the city's eastern district. Suspected weaponry was a non-nuclear-power-based bomb of some kind, a 'strange natural force' as posited by one reporter, and even a theory being discussed about possible anti-American warfare. Sadly, the estimations were expected to rise over the next six days. In any case, White House representatives gave their opinion of the ongoing city-scale crisis being endured.

Most repeated the same rhetoric and fear tactics used to drum up patriotism. Most of them proved to be rather unhelpful in their discussions regarding the issue.

Helena felt anger whenever she thought of politics, made worse by the fact that her job demanded she understand it.

The stale, rigid status quo that had become American politics enraged her and her many contemporaries, to a point where she thought about possibly organizing a paid protest to simply raise awareness that polarization itself was the main issue plaguing congress. Of course, what good would that do in a world that systematically ceases to care? Another thought that occurred to her was to somehow influence the gerrymandering of the districts. It might be fun. She'd never considered using her company to influence politics that way before, even though she was in the top five percent of all wealthy, 'elite' individuals based in the United States. The presumption of others was that she used this position herself to _always_ somehow affect congress.

Not so. Though she may not have been successful in commanding her forces to eliminate MIST, _someone_ needed to influence the senate somehow, to break against the populism death-grip.

And yet again, frustration filled her because she knew that others would not understand what in god's name she was talking about.

Besides that, DOATEC was in enough trouble already fighting their own enemies. She sat quietly watching the storm rolling in from the coast. The sky was darkening.

Sunlight had poured in only briefly, as now her favorite weather was on the horizon, rain. Rain and cold climate were admittedly not good for her executive tan, but she enjoyed the weather for some reason, perhaps because it sparked to mind the days of her youth spent indoors bonding with her mother. Perhaps it was simply that she longed for the shelter of the grey to hide from the intensity of the sun and its bright rays of light. The heatwave was over.

Her thoughts shifted gear to Bayman. She wondered about his resolve, would he be up to this task she'd given him?

To compete in these tournaments was a young man's game, and he was no longer young.

Regardless, she knew she couldn't afford to doubt him. Beside that fact, she had to hold an important meeting today regarding permits for false-flag fighters.

All designed to allay suspicions of Bayman, of course.

* * *

**(*.*.*)**

* * *

The snow-haired man reached his destination.

Dante drove into the parking lot that sat out front of the colossal building before him. It was a stand alone complex detached from the rest of the corporate structures that populated New York City, and apart from the main skyscraper, there were mainly luxury run-off facilities that were positively huge, all-white and slick. What a marvelous place it was, a massive self-sufficient office, locked away from the charming brownstone of the rest of Brooklyn. Free from the clawed hands of rivals, this juggernaut of a building was a master of perseverance and longevity.

The logo shined brightly from the neon sign and the peculiar petrichor coming off the dry cement reminded him that a storm was brewing. The skies greyed and a drizzle began to fall.

The style of the building itself was intentionally as grand and high-brow as any other tower that had ever been built, gothic and immaculate. A real sense of 'old' New York oozed through.

"Now I definitely know I'm in the right place." He said. The whole environment around him seemed fit for a queen.

He made his way forward across the blacktop and walked through the establishment's primary front doors.

Entering the building, he viewed a fancy lobby that almost looked as though it was meant for a five-star hotel. Everything was darkly lit, gold colors, roman architecture, marble statues of gods positioned above archways and within empty spaces against walls that lined the numerous doorways and halls, water fountains and ornate tapestries that hung high on the wall instead of a museum; all the signs were here. The workers that passed him by were dressed in fancy business suits, smartly tailored and representative of their status. In the center of the building lay a giant fountain, at the center of which stood a statue of a man in great stride, the right arm outstretched as though her were leading an army that no longer stood behind him. On the statue's forehead was a third eye carved in.

"Neat place," he remarked to himself.

He both felt and looked entirely out of place.

He approached the receptionist.

"Excuse me, ma'am? I'm here to see Helena Douglas," he said.

Looking him over, the woman laughed.

"Not dressed like that you are. This is a corporation and Ms. Douglas is in a meeting right now. You'll have to schedule an appointment for another day, sir," she said flippantly.

Clearly, manners and grace were not her forte.

"Um, please?" He said, outright mocking her with a sense of futility.

"With an attitude like that, never." She said. Her voice was nasally and stereotypical of New Yorkers. Frustrated, Dante looked around the room to see security cameras trained on him, alongside them multiple security guards leering menacingly. One wrong move and he'd be thrown out, he could tell. The man began to think of some way he could gain entry, a way to do so without employing violence.

He thought of just the thing.

"Alright. What if I was to tell you that i had applied for a job, and that 'Ms. Douglas' was expecting me for an interview?" He said.

The receptionist scoffed at this notion, "Oh please. What infantile person thinks the C.E.O. of _this_ company handles interviews?"

"What can I say? I guess that phone call I had with her was imaginary," he said. Maybe that would throw her off.

"Really? What department did she want you to come work in?" She asked skeptically. He knew she wanted to see him squirm, but a man like Dante never let that happen.

He observed other parts of the environment and began to create ideas.

"She called me in to head up catering and labor. I used to own Romero's," he said, having grafted this information from a business card scattered on a different receptionist's desk.

Her face fell a little more serious, "You're . . . for the gala?" Cynicism remained.

"Do me a favor. Call up her assistant I spoke with and tell her the meeting planner's here. I need to discuss some logistics with Ms. Douglas," he said, fully bluffing both the gender of her subordinate and the timing. The woman still held a large degree of doubt.

"Oh really? What's the assistant's name?" She asked.

Now was as good a time as any to stop improvising but Dante needed to talk to Helena. Above all else, she was his top priority. Sighing to himself, he secretly looked over anything on the desks he could, doing so with such speed that he appeared outwardly to not even blink. The man managed to spot a small list of tasks scribbled down on a yellow notepad. At the top was a name and a job title.

Time to gamble.

'Brain, don't fail me now,' he thought  
"Kokoro," he said.

The woman's face went several shades paler. She immediately tried to resume her cool. Looking at him was agony. The dead seriousness on his face made her squeamish when legitimacy was attached.

Satisfaction peeled across his pupils.

Stammering in her speech, she choked to him while attempting some form of damage control. Not a word would come. So, instead, she turned to the phone and called Kokoro's desk. Time froze for minutes on end as she felt his piercing, frosty gaze alienate her. It was tragic that she remained so desperately stuck up to the final moments of her defeat. Dante smirked to himself at the unique failure. He could hear the tone dialing itself over and over again, but finally, the dark-haired secretary picked up the line.

"What is it? I'm in the middle of speaking with guests," she said.

"Ah, _aherm_ . . . miss, the meeting planner is here to see you," the woman croaked.

Kokoro looked at her calendar and saw they weren't meant to have a meeting with them until four days later. Naturally, it was common among large businesses such as themselves to want to meet ahead of schedule and be as prepared as possible. After all, it was no use being pleasantly organized if you were late. Thinking nothing of it, the bubbly secretary calmly spoke into the phone.

"Oh, send him up," she said, hanging up her office phone.

Back on the bottom floor, the woman smiled in a barely contained self-hatred.

"S-so! Sir, why don't you just wait right here for a moment and I'll get you an executive visitor's pass, then you'll be all set," whining as she said these words, her foot planted firmly into her mouth.

He looked down on her with pleasure.

"I weep for the future," Dante stated when he received his keycard and left a mortified employee standing in pure shock.

Walking into the elaborate gold-plated elevator, he pushed a button and began his ascent up the proverbial corporate ladder. The elevator ride was long and tedious. He stood there admiring his reflection in the polished alloy surface. He wondered what the woman was like, Helena. Was she kind-hearted? He knew her ethnicity at the very least. The French weren't exactly renowned for their kindness. Then again, neither were some of the pig-ignorant stains he'd had the misfortune of meeting over the years. The music in here was dull. Slow-moving jazz music. Perfect, he wanted to be good and drowsy by the time he reached her office. The seconds whittled away like hours, and he wondered why she couldn't have been a woman who owned a small business instead.

What did she look like? What did Bayman look like? He'd had no photographic proof of existence, nothing more than the word of a woman he felt like pleasing. The more he thought about the job, the less it made sense. He'd been assigned to kill two people, one of whom, as it turned out, was connected to a vastly powerful company in New York City . . . and she'd come down to greasy, slimy Edgemere to talk to him. An entire slate of counties away, in another state altogether.

He knew a rat when he smelled it.

* * *

**(*.*.*)**

* * *

And the journey was brought to a halt. A soft chime cued the doors open, and so too did the red hunter see the open floor around him.

Dante strode out of the elevator and began searching for a French blonde. Easier said than done, of course.

He took a few steps forward and observed that the inside of this building truly was just as massive as the exterior.

The floor he arrived on was a wide open temple of bridges and Greek scripture carved into the walls, a giant archway taken straight from the Mediterranean as an imported piece of art adorning a wall on the far side of the structure. He zeroed in towards it and discovered the arch led to an indoor amphitheater where a motivational corporate speaker was giving a lecture to the company's sales personnel on customer service. He returned out to the colossal foyer and explored the wide grounds, thinking of where the primary office of its CEO had to be. He knew logically it would reside close to, if not, the highest floor, but the elevator he'd come from had already reached maximum height. What company needs a structure so large? He pondered many relevant questions as he scanned the area and roamed the hallways for proper sounds and signs, eventually making his way across the forum to a group of primary lifts that he saw took executive managers higher into the complex.

He walked in and joined a group of stiffs in the elevator, fatheaded corporate dukes looking for that salary above everything else. He smirked. The doors closed shut.

Stepping out to a new plaza, he left the others behind as they'd become frightened of him. They didn't understand why a person like him had come to an upstanding place like this.

"Evening, fellas," he remarked with a salute as the doors nearly closed on them, forcing them to scramble to prevent it from sending them back down.

He wandered down tiled hallways till he came to a pristine reception, and there, he met a young woman sitting at a laughably large desk. She was attractive, sporting black hair and a name tag with that oh-so desired confirmation: Kokoro. She was dressed in a beige cardigan, black bowtie, and a light brown plaid skirt. How quaint. Though minimalistic in phrasing, the ensemble did little to hide her figure.

He balked at her improbable looks and approached confidently.

"Hi there. I'm here to see Helena," he said.

She looked at him, confused. "You're . . . the caterer?"

"Who, me?" He looked around. "I think so."

"You're not the man I spoke to-"

"Yeah I don't care," the man interjected. "Listen, I'm gonna see Helena now. It concerns her well-being, so do me a favor and just let her know she has an appointment that's going to take up the rest of her day. Don't know how long it'll be, best to give her my warning now before she sees me."

She stared at him empty, face falling as the import of his words then registered on her. "I— no. Sir, she's in the middle of a meeting, I can't let you see her if you don't have an appoint-"

Without warning, he shoved his palm forward across the risen embankment of her desk and clasped her forehead in his grasp. An electrical surge ran through his fingers, Alastor's power crackling, and she twitched and froze before unconsciousness overcame her. She slumped in her chair, drooling, shocked into sleep. He straightened his coat and cracked his shoulder blades together.

" _Hush, little baby, don't say a word,_ " he mockingly sung.

He saw wooden double doors that led into another room. He could hear a woman's muffled voice speaking through them. It had an underlying characteristic, one he knew was foreign but recognizable. A French accent, perhaps. He knew he'd reached his destination. Strolling towards the doors leisurely, he threw his hands out and opened them into a conference room. Inside were men and women adorned with fabulous expenses and business suits, striking serious faces sitting at an oval-shaped wood desk as they listened to a woman who bore a peculiar similarity to the description of a one Ms. Douglas. The woman wore formal wares for the occasion, a red-and-burgundy tailcoat lined with green trim, white pants, red stiletto boots, and a pair of prim white gloves. There was a sense of style he felt close to, after all, she wore scarlet. After his own heart. She was so very pleasant to stare at, even more beautiful than her unconscious secretary in the reception.

"Excuse me! Sir!" She clapped her hands at him immediately. "You cannot be in here."

"Hey babe," he couldn't help himself to say. "I got some business we gotta talk about."

"'Business?' What on earth are you talking about?"

A man grunted, grabbing her attention as best he could, and he said, "Pardon me Ms. Douglas, but do you know this man?"

"Not at all. This is the first time I have ever seen him," she replied, and she readdressed the intruder, "Who exactly are you?"

He let out a small fit of laughter. "Oh, I have _so_ many names, forgive me. Just call me Redgrave. Didn't mean to interrupt this little pow-wow of yours," he told them, strutting past the suits on the opposite side of the table to where the woman stood. He was nothing if not casual. "Gotta say though, I love this building. Not too shabby for a gal from France, really. Tell me, you inherit all this? Ya seem a bit too young for this kind of thing, raking in billions. I don't recall if this company changed ownership, but I can't imagine what'd be profitable enough nowadays to build somethin' this big. You must got some kinda mind for business . . . anyway, I come with regards from Christie."

And he bowed as any good gentleman should.

The woman stared him down and pursed her lips.

"Gentlemen, I believe it is time for a break. If you'll look off to your right, you will see the gourmet food bar we've had prepared for you all. I'll be one moment, then we will get back on track," she said, directing the visitors quickly away from this distraction. She smiled and remained professional in her awareness as she motioned for Dante to accompany her outside the conference, and she began to walk towards the door that led back to the hall. When she passed all the visitors and was sure her front was out of sight, she reached down. Concealed on her thigh, she pulled on a Beretta hushpuppy, and began screwing on the silencer, which she also produced from her other leg, though she was sure to keep her hands held in on her flat stomach, giving the impression she was fiddling with the lacing of her coat.

Amused, the Devil Hunter followed her out slowly.

As the doors shut behind him, he noted that he'd already lost sight of her. Then he felt the barrel pressed against his hair.

He froze in place.

"How dare you interrupt this meeting," she growled at him, sure to keep her voice low. "You come with regards from Christie, then you will die for her just the same."

The man swallowed and remained calm.

"Ah-heh, I can understand why you're a little on edge, and I'm sorry 'bout that. I just needed to get you alone, I got questions for you-" He heard her cock the hammer.

"That isn't good enough," she told him.

"Okay, okay," he said lackadaisical. "Just calm down, ma'am. I'm not here to hurt anyone, I just want some answers."

The fact that he was so calm unnerved her. She knew Christie was a refined expert, but never did she anticipate she would outsource her job to another, particularly one who seemed so comfortable with death. Was it a fascination with her pretty face? She couldn't understand why she still despised her so. In the event of an assassination, she would've at least expected the killer to pull the trigger herself.

"You will tell me who you are and why you are here. If you do not talk, I'm going to shoot you. Do you understand what I am saying?"

"Yeah, we're crystal," he replied.

"I will not repeat myself."

"Ooooh, my head!" Kokoro stirred, grasping at her forehead.

The CEO shifted her focus briefly to the mild-mannered young girl.

That was a mistake.

Dante turned on his heels and swung his right arm fast, bashing her aim off-course, and then attempted a restrained jab at her neck, a throat-punch for early immobilization. The woman quickly defended with her other arm, thrusting her hand up against the instep of his forearm. Her boot heel connected with his gut and separated the two, the woman retaining her hold of the gun which she clasped in both hands lining up the sights, and she fired. She'd gone for the center of his head, but the man moved faster then even she could conceive, grasping the bullet from its path and dashing forward. Slyly, he slipped the un-warped shell into her dress between her cleavage, and, grasping her wrist with his other hand, redirected her pistol up towards the ceiling. She struggled against him well, but he forced her to fire all the remaining bullets up through the roof-tiles.

Her knee struck between his legs and the man grunted as she let go of the empty firearm and grasped hold of his wrist. Despite the difference between them, she forcibly flipped him forward onto his backside. Judo, unexpected. He quickly turned over to his knees, but her foot came crashing into his face, and the man forcibly staggered back on his joints as she hammered her heel into his upper back, the boot's stiletto stomping and puncturing his flesh, then quickly being torn free.

He grumbled and caught her next kick in trapping hands, and he stood abruptly. She toppled back some but managed to remain standing by grabbing his coat lapels as he pushed her leg up to her chest. She displayed no pain or discomfort, he noticed. She must do yoga. He pushed towards her till they were face to face. He grabbed the small of her back and dragged her towards himself, taking three giant steps back. She knew his game. Win by overextension, cheap but effective. She brought up her other leg around the left side of his collar and shifted forward, locking her thighs around his head, her hands moving to grasp his hair. With a shout, she dropped her elbow down on the top of his skull and then tugged on him, acrobatically flipping herself backwards, using both her weight and momentum to throw the man from his feet, but he wouldn't budge this time.

He was ready for that. She was left extending her back suspended in the air.

She gave up trying and pulled herself forward. Helena struck his head once more before releasing her hold and somersaulting off of his face as he staggered back.

Touching down gracefully, she resumed her stance. It was at this point that she noticed a warmth at her chest. Looking down, she saw the casing tucked between her breasts pressing snugly against her skin, the bulk of its heat absorbed by the man named Redgrave. Rage overcame rational thought and she growled at him.

"Pervertir!" She yelled as she lunged and jumped, throwing her full bodyweight into two kicks at his chest starting with her right leg, then her left.

He grumbled and stumbled back a foot. The one-two had barely flummoxed him. Helena remained mystified almost. She'd put power into those kicks, yet he still wasn't floored. With pride, the CEO swung her leg around with a wheel kick aimed at his head, yet the man had vanished by the time it reached its mark. A hand grasped her ponytail and yanked hard, swinging her around till she faced the man in red. His open palm swiped against the side of her cheek, a loud clap sounding off as he slapped the taste from her mouth.

Now it was her turn to flip.

The force was so grand it took her off her toes, and true to his intentions, she circled forward and crashed to the ground on her chest, oxygen forced from her lungs.

He stood over her, leering like a hungry bear.

"That oughta slap some sense into ya," he remarked casually.

Soft hands clasped themselves in front of his chest, and a new weight rushed over his shoulders.

Kokoro was awake. She tackled him trying desperately to force him to his knees, but he just stood there in place. She wasn't aware she wasn't moving till she opened her eyes. His blue peepers peeked at the woman from the side, and he smiled at her.

"Hi." He waved with his left hand.

"Um- Hello," she replied, timid.

He grasped her arms and flung her forward off of him. She hit the floor on her backside, coughing.

One of the reception chairs collided with his legs, flung across the carpet sideways by the blonde executive returned, and it made him flinch on instinct. Her hand grasped the back of his head and Helena swung her left knee upwards into his face. It felt like her knee hit the side of a pickup truck. The man jostled backwards, the lights stinging his eyes for a moment. He had to open and close them rapidly to get the blurriness to go away.

Next came a series of fast punches to his abdomen, he counted four, followed by a crescent-kick to his left cheek that turned him on his feet. Her hands grasped the back of him and pushed him forward.

At the reception desk was a glass shield on the side that protected a series of potted plants on top of the shelf in front of paperwork.

She shoved his head through the glass into the pottery, glass shattering on impact. Dirt spread out across the carpet floor.

Dante spit out dirt and growled something indecipherable as he turned around and ducked her second wheel kick. He hauled out a right hook to her gut and she wheezed. Jerking his fist back into place in an instant, he shot out again like a machine pump, striking her shoulder. She felt it dislocate on impact. Promptly, he lurched his hand back a second time, this time flexing his fingers, and he threw out his open palm, smacking her across the face again. Helena flew across the room into the next hallway over, cheek throbbing.

Kokoro came at his core with a front-kick but the Hunter ate the strike to his abs like it was nothing. He looked at her with sympathy.

Afraid but not deterred, she next came at him with a flurry of Bajiquan punches and elbows, striking out at anything she could. Dante blocked each with his right arm alone, and, try as she might, the woman just couldn't land a clean blow on him.

Ending on a right-handed strike to his ribs, the Devil Hunter caught her by the wrist and held her arm up high. He smirked at her and electricity flowed through his fingertips. She felt pain and shock as the volts ran through her system, involuntarily twitching. It was only a mere second before she was unconscious yet again. She slumped back on the floor, out cold and tased into submission.

Helena huffed and puffed, raising on her only functioning arm slowly. She scoffed at herself and this injury. This was beneath her, surely.

Raised to her knees, she placed her afflicted arm's hand on the ground slowly, holding the limb gingerly at her side. Placing her other hand around the joint, she pushed down against the floor with her entire bodyweight, and the junction snapped back into place. Her eyes bloodshot, she collapsed against the wall and held her shoulder in place. Dante stood in the entryway to the hall, leaning against the same wall as her, his arms crossed. He'd barely broken a sweat.

Alright. She knew when she was beaten.

"Kill me quickly," she remarked.

"Now why would I wanna do that?" He replied.

"That is why you are here in the first place, no?"

"Well, yeah. But actually, no. I didn't come here to kill ya, as much as you tried to make me . . . I just wanna ask you some questions, honest."

She looked at him for a good, long time. As much as her own cynicism screamed at her to shun those words, he did seem to be remaining true to his intention. He hadn't shown a desire to hurt her much until she pushed him by force, and even now, he displayed a desire simply to understand rather than destroy. It may have been an ill-advised misjudgment of his character. All it took was one single word, but in her experience, it was smarter to presume all within your purview were enemies of the state.

". . . Are you certain of that?"

A smirk creased his lips and he rose an eyebrow. "Hey, look, you can get back up and try doing this dance again, or we take it slow and talk things out. I can do this all day."

He spoke truly. She relaxed somewhat, arm still aching terribly. Looking at him, his eyes seemed gentle, oddly.

The conference room doors opened and those inside peered out at the ransacked reception, shattered glass and knocked over plants, an unconscious woman and a chair, all sprawled out across the room.

"Ms. Douglas . . . ?" A confused shareholder muttered.

* * *

**(*.*.*)**

* * *

She called it quits on the meeting. A rescheduling was in order after that raucous display.

In the meantime, another meeting took place

A man sat at a desk. The room was darkly lit, wood panels lined its walls as electronic candles adorned black metal hooks that were mounted into the partitions. The regality of the office was nothing special. The entire facility was meant to look this way, an old castle that had been converted for modern use on an obscure Spanish isle. He was the leader of Anur, a so-called a nation for its technicalities, existing upon a mere island. It happened that it once held an ancient Spanish colony, long forgotten by now, and before that, it was a Swedish fishing outpost till malaria came and wiped out the old residents. It had been largely abandoned for countless years.

It wasn't until his father, Victor Donovan had found and salvaged the land as a base of operations, did it then become a fixture of modern times. The old man never saw it through to completion. So it fell to the son, a man named Rig, to lead operations through the future, and he'd most certainly felt as though the legacy had been preserved. Rig himself was a man of wealth and taste, and yet his sense of fashion was a crude design. He often wore, as he did now, a sleeveless hooded jacket colored black with grey cargo pants and plain simple shoes. Tattoos of murky ink stretched all down his skin, proud and distinctive, speaking to heritage and to unique aesthetic, many in languages he didn't even speak. Add to all that a green shirt that feature a skull on its front, and he felt perfectly comfortable.

And yet, anger surrounded him in this dark atmosphere as he spoke with a fatal woman that sat in front of him.

"So, you actually slept with him," the man asked.

"Yes. Does that . . . bother you?" Christie replied.

Silence permeated the room.

"I see. I'm sorry," she said. "Although . . . to be fair, I was told 'by any means necessary.'"

"Yes, you were."

Such discontent between these two.

"You found the lone son of Sparda. Have you recruited him for the next tournament yet?"

"No. So far, he's only accepted the contract to kill Helena. I haven't told him of the tournament."

He seemed to remain emotionless.

"Very well. I'll have registration extended then, but only privately. When you're done with him, let me know. It's crucial that we have his power in our grasp. He must be on that island somehow."

"Yes sir."

And with that, he dismissed her. The tournament was still too long a wait for him. He desired power more so than any other man, and the death of his father left him weary of his own mortality. He sought to extend his life by any means necessary, a fitting theme. He though this order would enforce ruthlessness, not sexuality, but, in truth, he had forgotten the ways of women in his lonely isolation out here on this island. In this place, he was king, yet there was only one thing he could not have after so long. The obsession he felt for her was not reciprocated, a concept he felt to be bizarre.

With one cathartic sigh, he lit a cigarette. He didn't usually smoke, often preferring to save his lungs from becoming short-winded, but that minty taste was something he couldn't let go of.

There wasn't anything more to do. So, he simply sat there and puffed away, smokey trails rising and dispersing in his dark abode quietly.


	7. Thorn Within

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So much time, too little too late. A million chess pieces moving all at once and not a one in Dante's favor.

Christie stepped out of the helicopter transport that had touched down atop the roof of a broad New York building. The wind blazed, turned up by the vast propeller stuck on this black metal contraption. A rage welled up inside her, pushing her rationale to a dark corner. She disliked being here again so soon. What she desired most was a vacation from this business. MIST was wearing her thin with constant missions and assassinations, all for a purpose she didn't understand. The hit-woman strode forward, dressed in all-black clothes. She kept things simple when it came to the actual job. Holding a briefcase in one hand, she removed her sunglasses with the other, and there, she met another woman, a sunnier blonde of tanner complexion. The pilot killed the engine, allowing for sane conversation.

"It's my understanding that you've been waiting for me?" The platinum-haired beauty said as she strolled towards the other woman.

"Yeah, I have," the stranger replied. "It's about time you showed up. I've just been sitting here, trying to pass the time. I even resorted to watching professional wrestling."

As she grew closer, the image of the her became defined more clearly from the shadows. The stranger walked out into the moonlight, and it became apparent that a strange power emanated off her skin. She almost resembled Helena, quite surprisingly. However, there were key differences to take note of. For one, she did not possess a meek body, instead demonstrating a broadly muscular physique that made both her fellow women, and even some men, absolutely envious. Standing there in the moonlight still, she was practically statuesque. Over her shoulders, she wore a taupe jacket with the word 'Alma' embroidered over the left breast, the lapels flared and set apart, lowly cut as thought it were a swoop-necked shirt. Purple trim adorned the sleeves, using a design of bars that ended where she had them rolled up. A white one inch collar rested above her elbows where the jacket ended, revealing her well-toned forearms.

Black leather gloves and red nail polish. Classic combination, of course.

High heeled dark boots, jacket-matching pants, and a red-black bra filled out the rest of the ensemble. She neglected to wear an undershirt beneath that jacket. Other details included a stylish white belt that acknowledged the pale on her shortcoat. She didn't seem to be holding any weapons, though she looked like someone quite formidable with one. She came unarmed, and Christie couldn't help but to stare at her, both her raw beauty and the aura that poured off her skin so swell.

Coming to a stop, the assassin said, "Wrestling doesn't concern me, dear Rachel. Have you decided to accept our invitation or are you still content to waste away on this rooftop?"

"Don't toy with me. I'll be there at your little contest."

"How very direct. I like that in a man," Christie said, casually flirtatious.

Rachel cocked an eyebrow and scratched the outside of her elbow. "I'm a woman, or is my shirt too low key for you to notice that?"

The assassin felt aroused. She liked this one, replying, "What else do you say? I'm dying for something to spice my night up."

"If all your business is purely carnal in nature, then I'll be taking my leave from you," the fiend-hunter urged her ruggedly back toward the chopper. "Was there anything else?"

Christie felt vexed by the fighter's sternness. Ironically, that seemed to remind her even more of Helena. It was a bit of a twisted attraction, in a way. Christie wondered if that was something she might see a therapist about. A healthy insecurity came along with all that sexual freedom.

She said flatly, "You're no fun, half-breed." And she handed over the briefcase. "Hmph . . . here, this is your deposit."

The package was received with care, the woman understanding perfectly well what kind of money she'd been given. It was a tremendous gift, one which suit her own needs well.

"A million dollars. If you win, the whole purse is twenty-five." Christie was adept at holding back her own profound sensuality, at least some of the time. Also, lying.

Lying through those flawless teeth.

Looking at her, a part of her wanted to rip off her clothes to see what that level of fitness truly looked like. It drove her crazy when she couldn't see the truth of what was right in front of her, or what she wasn't allowed to see. Usually, it was quite fun to keep secrets, but she felt a strong, tugging curiosity come over her. The woman before her, Rachel, was a powerful specimen to be beheld. Whenever she'd see her next, she was looking forward to it.

"Yes . . . It will be spent wisely," Rachel said before deciding what she'd say next. "I suppose thanks are in order."

"No thanks are necessary," Christie replied. "All we ask of you is that you turn up on the date when it's announced. We'll handle the rest."

"Very well," the woman said.

"Now," the assassin began. "If you'll excuse me, since that's all, I'm going to head back to my resort."

And the platinum beauty was off. Being as alluring as she was enabled certain perks in life. That was the only gratification she ever needed.

Apart from sex and murder.

* * *

**(*.*.*)**

* * *

Within this old tower built by Fame, Helena led the pale devil to her office.

Dante stepped into the air-conditioned office and he instantly noticed exactly how sterile each surface was. No stains, no dust, no mess, no fuss, all the chairs were symmetrically ordered, and the desk was polished to a fine crisp. He wondered where in hell she found such amazing housekeepers, the office rendered that immaculate. Overhead, the blue light soothed his skin and eyes and he couldn't help but stand and stare into its embrace. He closed his eyes. Helena stood by him, herself feeling as though it were an ardent task to continue to show him the ropes, given how well of an entrance he'd given.

"So, you desire answers," she said cynically, walking past him to her desk. "You may ask of me what you wish."

Dante came out of his trance, briefly staring at her before admitting to himself it was a good time to take a seat.

"Right." And he walked over.

"So, where would you like to start, mr. Redgrave?"

"First thing's first," he said as he moved the stainless steel chair and sat down. "What's up with you and Christie? Why d'you hate her so much?"

She inhaled deeply, eyes wide and stern. Clearly, this wasn't a subject she was going to enjoy explaining.

"That, my friend, is a hatred that goes back a long, long time," she sighed. "She murdered my mother."

He fell sullen. "Oh . . ."

"Yes," she scoffed. "'Oh.'"

"I'm sorry," he said.

"It is appreciated. To summarize: we have been trying to kill one another for years. She worked for Donovan, the president before me. Now, presumably, she works for his son," she explained.

"Right. Okay. So she wants to kill you. She's clever, she misdirected a lot of anger towards you onto Bayman. That explains the whole sob story about her 'husband.'" He saw her expression, and explained, "She fed me a line that she was just some poor girl trying to make it in New York and that she was married to some jadrool named 'Bay-man.' He cheated on her with a 'French hussy,' which is, presumably, you. Then she said she wanted me to 'take care' o' both of 'em. What I'd like to know is who the hell is this 'Bay-man?' Is he real or not? Does he got a last name?"

"Not as far as I know," she told him. She got a kick out of that story, admittedly. It was so far from the truth, she couldn't help but crack a smile. "Bayman is my former head-of-security."

He nodded, "Mm, so that takes care of him."

"Yes. I am curious though, you seemed to have had doubts before coming here. What made you question her story?"

"Oh, so many things," he quipped. "It was just little stuff, things that didn't add up. She didn't have an address for either one of you, and when I asked about that, she just said you were 'in New York.' I would think anyone who'd actually been here long enough to get married could've at least narrowed it down to a neighborhood. And that's another thing, she told me she'd caught the both of you in her apartment, but then she never told me the address at any point. All I got was a vague answer that left me wondering. She gave me nothin' to go on other than the names. Then, the topper of it all, she didn't even have any money to pay my fee. So, either she thinks I'm dumber than a box of rocks, or she's not a very good liar. I knew somethin' was wrong pretty much the second she spoke."

"Wait," Helena said, looking quizzical. "She had no money . . . how did she pay you for this service then?"

He glared at her. "How do ya think, Frenchie?"

The woman blushed and she grew uncomfortable. She looked away from him and felt as though her nerves had come undone.

"Mr. Redgrave, refrain from discussing such matters."

"Ain't nothing wrong about two adults just doin' their thing."

She snorted, " _Be that as it may!_ Please keep this conversation on-topic."

He chuckled aloud at her prudish reaction and relaxed back in the chair coolly. He wondered how much time she spent controlling every element and action. How many nights had she spent sleepless planning things, tinkering with her own fate like blackboard alchemist? It wasn't for him to say, certainly, wasn't his purpose to know. He'd seen many a powerful woman crumble to dust. The only thing Dante truly ever asked for from anyone was that, if it so happened his own mind had closed in fear, that someone would pry it back open.

"Alrighty. Next question: Are you the CEO of this company?"

"Yes."

That confirmed for him the whole truth of the lie.

"You also an opera singer by chance?"

"Yes, formerly."

He knew he'd recognized her, his mother had loved the opera and frequently took both himself and his brother to shows in Manhattan as a boy. He could've sworn he'd seen either her or someone similar at one stage during his youth on a trip to France. Both parents used to travel frequently, but that was of little importance now.

"Are you single?"

She sighed and tilted her head down, "Mr. Redgrave, once more, refrain from inappropriate questions."

"Sorry, just had to ask." The man loved to tease.

"You mentioned that you require a fee. What exactly _is_ your specific profession?" she asked.

"Hm? Oh that. I kinda do a lot of things, it's not really definable. I'm a bit of a jack-of-all-trades type. Sometimes I get hired to do detective work, sometimes it's police assistance, sometimes it's muscle, other times, very occasionally, I get hits." He sighed as she stared at him, and he assured her, "You can rest easy, I never do 'em unless it's a matter of necessity, the real human-waste kinda deal. I know not everyone's a winner. It'd be naive of me to think some bastards don't deserve to keep walkin' around at this point. I've spent time on both sides of the tracks to know. I mean far be it from me that some poor fella makes himself a target of some other party, I just can't ever like it. Not a business I'm a fan of getting my boots involved in. Most times I have to deal with a contract, I offer a small talk always, no questions asked. Depends on the context of who it is, I suppose. The very least I do is talk to 'em before it happens, maybe try draggin' some good out of 'em at the last minute."

He looked at himself reflected in the tin lamp for a moment, his expressionless face devoid of innocence. Couldn't look himself in the eye for more than a second, "Guess what I'm tryin' to say is . . . it matters what's in a person's heart more than what's on their rap sheet."

"I see."

She tried her best rationalizing that mess of words, but it did her no good.

The amount of comfort he displayed with the idea was unnerving. He'd killed before, and he seemed resolute to kill again, but it wasn't a sick pleasure. There was a hint of disgust in his voice, she could hear it. Disgust perhaps at himself or perhaps at others, she wasn't altogether too sure. Just how long had he been doing this? Long enough not to care. Long enough not to let himself care. Perhaps, after so many years on the hunt, his soul was already damned.

"Understand, it's a matter of transaction, I don't get involved personally," he told her, his eyes rather dispirited for a moment. "It's just something I gotta live with."

Helena sighed. She understood that, at the very least. "We all must make difficult decisions."

He simply nodded. It was the first time she noted that the hunter had nothing to say. It was a terrible thing to be left speechless.

"You have any idea if anyone might be making de- uh, biological weapons of some kind?"

"Hmm?" she replied.

"Ya know, er- monster-type shit, inhuman beasts or viruses, something that can change the human form," he clarified. He didn't think he'd get a bite on this one.

And he was right. "Not that I know of," she replied, "the only company that creates bio-weapons I am concerned with does not deal in anything of that sort."

"I thought not," he grumbled.

Well that closed one door and left him with entirely too many questions still unanswered.

"Mmm," she replied in equal kind a growling executive.

She grasped her head and felt sick. That beating he'd given her was rearing its ugly head. Her shoulder in particular felt the worst. Interviewed by the man who'd wrecked her body for a few minutes. Yes, she believed this was what others referred to as 'rock bottom.' Helena sighed and wiped off her forehead with her sleeve. That was one sopping wet sleeve. She rubbed her shoulder, keeping her forearm elevated as though it were held in a sling.

"Ya know, I got somethin' for pain relief, if you want it," Dante broke in with a stoney suggestion.

She glared back at him.

"It's healthy, I swear," he told her.

She clenched her jaw and stared upwards at the ceiling. Eventually, she simply nodded and turned towards him in her chair. He assumed that meant 'yes,' and so he rummaged through his pockets searching for his remedy, specially made from the plants he'd grown in his shop's front yard. Eventually, he found the vial and removed it from his left coat compartment. He held the small tube forward, glowing green. The liquid inside of it swirled with an active, otherworldly quality, brilliant particles within swirling in spite of its stillness. Cautiously, she took the plastic from him and held it in her hands, admiring the substance.

"What is this?" She asked him.

"It's, ah, a bit of a home-brew, you could say," he explained.

She was hesitant to do anything with it.

"Well go ahead," he said, and after a moment of silence, he gestured with his hand. "You drink it."

"How can I trust that this wouldn't kill me?"

"Oh believe me, if I'd wanted you dead, you'd already be in the middle of your funeral."

She scoffed at him, she wasn't a fool. Nevertheless, she relaxed herself as much as her injuries would allow, and she cleared her throat. Unscrewing the black cap, she smelled the substance inside and found it to be odorless. Promising? She supposed so. His grin didn't help matters. Nevertheless, the CEO swallowed back saliva and promptly tipped the vial forward between her lips. The liquid poured down her throat and the texture soothed her skin capably, persuading her to swallow. The second it had hit her tastebuds, an unexpected taste came to her. It was the lightest, most pleasant flavor she had ever experienced. It was sweet, but not sickening. Tangy, but not sour. It reminded her of the chocolates her mother once bought.

As soon as she had consumed the vial's contents, a renewal washed over her, and each malady disappeared from her without any traces.

"Incroyable . . . That was- this is amazing," she said, bewildered. "What is this?"

"Like it? That would be a little substance I found called Ambrosia," he explained.

She stared at him, almost compelled to laugh. Ambrosia? The fruit of the gods, a myth of Greece? That was just silly.

"Ambrosia . . . I find that unlikely."

Dante smirked. "Not so, ma'am, I got a whole bunch of it growing on my front porch."

"This is unbelievable," she said, ignoring his comment, and instead rolled her shoulder to find that the damage had simply vanished. "How did you- Are you a practitioner of medicine?"

"Nope. Never took a class in my life, would ya believe it?"

"No," she replied.

"I thought not." And the man sat back and crossed both his legs and arms, "So, how's it treatin' ya?"

She stayed silent, feeling the remarkable and total removal of pain.

He nodded, "That's what I figured. Most people really dig it."

It seemed as though he'd attained all the answers he needed, all that was left was to return to his shop and to confront the truth. Christie had manipulated him, there wasn't a way to get around it, and he had known in the pit of his stomach that something was wrong from the get-go. Why did it have to be her? Why now must it be that she was the one who'd gone and lied to him . . . But of course, he'd forgotten his luck with women. Of all people, she'd chosen him. What for? He felt it unlikely that someone possessed knowledge of his true nature. There was still much to be answered, but he felt that the questions rested with Christie now, and if she'd been so desperate as to recruit him for the purpose of destroying the woman she despised, then he couldn't begin to imagine what else she was capable of.

Perhaps this was a case that he just couldn't go at by himself.

Then there was matter of those demons. Risen without prior understanding. He wondered where they came from? That itself required an entire other investigation, and quickly. His plate was certainly full.

"M'kay, well, I think we're done here," the man said, and swiftly, he stood to leave. "Sorry 'bout your meeting. Thanks for the answers."

"Wait!" She said, which surprised him.

"What? Miss my pretty face already?"

"What did you make this with?" She asked him as she hurried around her desk. She held the tube in front of him and he blinked. "Herbs?"

"Uh, no. No herbs, just some fruit and a few other things I mix in."

"I would like to know how you make this, I will pay whatever you ask," she almost pleaded.

Now he understood. "Aha— no, no-no-no. The formula's not for sale. Sorry."

The man attempted to leave, continuing his stroll towards the exit. She wouldn't hear of it. Stepping in front of him, the woman forced him still with her left hand.

"Listen to me, do you know how much a thing like this is worth? This drug you've created could advance medicine by a decade if you would let it."

"First off, it's not a drug. Second, I know. I'm not sellin' it," he said, snatching the tube from her hands.

He walked around her towards the door. Once more, the woman's boot crept in front of him and she stopped him once more.

"Why? You could be a very wealthy man if you only share it with others," she said.

"Two things: One, I don't really care about money, I'm well off enough already, 'kay? Two, because I know what big ole corporations like you do with little miracles like this, you exploit it to serve yourself profits by the truckload and then rope the public in like they're just a bunch of sheep being herded for your farm. DOATEC is a weapons company, if I recall correctly. So if I hand over this cure-all, what's to stop you from turning this wonderful fruit into a biological weapon? Huh? Or an overpriced prescription for good ol' big pharma?" Dante asked her.

She didn't have an answer for that. The look on her face was all he needed.

"That's what I thought," he grumbled, and he walked past her.

Once more came her footstep blocking his path, and she slid into view. He sighed and sank backwards, eyes closed out of frustration.

Looking back at her, he merely asked, "What d'ya want now?"

"I understand your reservations, and I understand why you will not let me purchase this from you; however, I feel you may be able to help me in a different way then."

He raised an eyebrow. "And how's that?"

"I need a new head-of-security. I feel you're more than a perfect candidate for that job." She said.

The man cocked his head to the right, disbelieving the claim. "I'm what now?"

"There is a position open here, I need it filled promptly. You've proven yourself adept at puncturing my security measures, so you currently are first in line." Helena looked at him sincerely but stern.

He slapped both his hands on each of her arms and clasped them in a firm grip, and she grew instantly disheveled. She wasn't used to strangers touching her. With a smile, he lifted her in the air and abruptly turned, moving her three paces to his right and out of the path of the doorway. He put her down easily enough, and his hands left her sleeves frazzled and sloppy. He then bowed his head and gave a salute.

"So long, toots," he said, then charged out the door.

A moment passed, and she remained still, her eyes flared in disbelief. The nerve.

Straightening her coat, she quickly regained herself and followed him out the door. She searched for the man outside in the halls and found no trace of him. Thinking quickly, she darted down the tiled hallways and looked endlessly for the white-haired man. Coming to the elevators, she saw him just barely before the doors closed. He wouldn't get away that easy. She quickly ducked back into her office and came to the panel that rested behind her desk chaired. She pressed her hand against a portion of the wall level with her chest, and the outline of a square formed as she pushed the small release forward. The wall quickly separated and opened to reveal another elevator built into the direct center of the structure.

Stepping inside, she pressed the button for the lobby and the doors quickly sealed themselves again, restoring the facade as she descended through the building.

It took many, many minutes, but she eventually reached the lobby. She straightened her clothes and prepared for the ground floor rush. The doors then opened.

She darted out to the lobby and looked for the man, and she did see him.

Dante was walking outside through the front doors in a hurry. Helena stalked after him, swiftly exiting the building's front doors seconds behind him. Numerous workers stopped to stare as she went by, disbelieving her presence. She scanned the parking lot. There he was walking towards his car. He moves far too quick. As the man unlocked the car and opened his door, he heard her voice behind him.

"Reconsider."

He turned back to look at her. There she was, driven to bring him to her service. "What, you jump?" he said, surprised, "That was pretty fast."

"You are of value with or without your cure, and I require your services. You said you are a jack-of-all-trades, prove it. Name your price and I will double it," she said.

A crowd began to gather. It wasn't everyday that Ms. Douglas was out and about in public, her showings were growing rarer by the minute. If there was one thing he hated, it was crowds.

"Look," he said quickly, "If I say yes, will ya leave me alone?"

"Yes, anything you want."

"The price, for you, is thirty-thousand," he said.

"A year?"

"A month."

She nodded, albeit pained. Thirty thousand dollars a month, doubled. The Devil was rather persuasive. She needed someone for the foreseeable future, given that Bayman would be out of commission for a significant amount of time. He'd proven himself a rather insistent thorn in her side. Clearly, her security wasn't up to snuff if he could just waltz in because he felt like it. Had he been serious about his orders, she might have actually died today. That was not a risk she was willing to take a second time.

"Sixty thousand a month. Very well."

"Okay, glad we got that settled. I'm goin' home now," he said, and he moved to enter the Camaro.

"Where is that?"

He sighed, another delay, "Edgemere."

He'd come from the city under fire, as she'd earlier heard. Was it a coincidence? More than likely not. She had seconds to respond, and pondered whether or not to even mention the bombing to him. The mere existence of this coincidence assured for her that she was making the right decision, but perhaps it would serve her well to withhold a discussion on the attack. Certainly, it would be something best kept to the chest for now, the time for revelations would come later.

"And you are going to drive there? No-no, I will have you flown back at once." She saw that perked his ears right up.

"Say what?"

"Mr. Redgrave, we may be many things, but DOATEC is always accommodating to its personnel. You will be flown by one of our jets."

* * *

**(*.*.*)**

* * *

There he travelled and so he returned, flown by plane 'cross state lines, car in tow.

The jet had been enticing, perhaps being on salary might be a better option than he'd once thought. The ordeal of his trip to New York City was an arduous and time-consuming flight, being attacked by demons twice during the visit was definitely a killjoy for him. He wondered about the anomaly of these events, if they'd been purely chance or an intentional series of attacks. The woman sat across from him during the flight, his car tucked away within the cargo hold, and she served him a contract that he was too distracted to read thoroughly, not that he would even begin to understand the contents of it. He left all that legal mumbo-jumbo to his handlers, be it good ole Enzo, Morrison, or even Lady . . . not that she could read it any better than him.

The man had signed it regardless, and he dropped off at Edgemere's airport hangar and secured a pathway for himself to drive off the runway. He supposed money was good to have, and he had little of it.

Driving home, he thought of what he might say to Christie. Perhaps he'd simply say nothing, just take his spare key back and throw her out. The blood-feud between her and Helena was none of his affair. The thought of seeing her again tore a small hole in his heart. Admittedly, he liked her a little too much. It was an inappropriate relationship to begin with, the woman was his client, not his trophy.

It was unhealthy of him to keep thinking on it, and yet that's all that would enter his mind. The man drove down all the familiar streets and highways, taking the forty-five minute drive from one side of the city to the other. He forgot how much he disliked driving, there was always someone to hate around every corner. Should it be that his road-rage be kept hidden away behind a smile? Unfortunately, that's all he could do anyway, his mother taught him manners, and there wasn't a need to piss anyone off at this point.

Finally, after long, long minutes he reached his shop once more. The neon letters glowed so specially in the midday sky. He parked and walked through the front doors to that smell he missed.

He could tell it was different. In his absence, Christie had made herself cozy a time or two, but there was something else as well.

There was an addition made to his humble abode. He couldn't quite place it, the smell was akin to that of a new car, or a piece of freshly manufactured machinery. First thing's first, he began to search the front office for the source of the scent, scanning across whatever he could to see what was out of place, anything that could've been altered in his absence. He rifled through the bar conspicuously. Nothing

Next up was the couches. Though he had, at invariable points, caught the scent while searching them, most of what he found there were memories of females-past.

Though he wouldn't admit it, he liked the place to be somewhat clean. While he was in no way a neat-freak, he often preferred that garbage be thrown away. That aside, he figured maybe it was somewhere in his desk. Searches here proved fruitless. So, onto the bookshelf. Nope. He sat down on his chair lazily, wondering where the smell was truly coming from. It bugged him when there was something present that shouldn't be. His eyes focused in towards the jukebox for some reason. In the corner, past his pool table, sat the music-maker as pleasant as ever. But something was wrong with it. The object looked like it had been moved, having shifted from its usual place ever so slightly.

Of course. The last place to check would be the jukebox.

He sauntered towards it and popped open the front grill. Past the catalogue in the back of the compartment within was the exact source of the smell.

The man reached in and removed the object, plain as day. It was a minuscule recording device, a microphone bugged into his room. Anger rose swiftly.

The contraption compressed and crushed inward into a small ruin within his closed hand. An attempt to spy on him.

Onto the other rooms, the man searched tirelessly through the entirety of his unit, and he found no less than three others.

He destroyed them all in his hands and threw them together out his upstair window into the dumpster. Now he was pissed, the uncomfortable truth laid bare before him.

He came downstairs and confronted the emptiness of his abode.

The man plopped himself down in his chair and put his elbows on the desk. He steepled his hand and rested his chin on his thumbs. Wasn't much else to do but sit and stew.

An hour passed and a grumble emerged from his stomach. The man did his best to ignore it.

From outside, an engine grew louder as it came closer, and it revved around the corner into his lot. The occupant killed the motor and stepped off the vehicle's saddle, a motorcycle. The boots stalked the side of his building, accompanied by the sounds of metal instruments within their holsters bouncing, clicking together every once in a while, and a slight swaying was heard in the movements. He knew that stepping pattern, those metallic chinks. It could only have been one person.

The unlocked door opened and in walked a statuesque woman, her raven-haired fringe covering her forehead, a very slight scar running across the bridge of her nose. Her wispy face was accompanied by mismatched eyes, one blue like his own, the other an amber shade. He knew her well, and she knew him as well. A bazooka draped over her back, she removed her sunglasses and slipped them into her green coat, the woman armed to the teeth with various handguns. Beneath her jacket was a low-cut black top that complimented her short frilled skirt well, and with brown biker boots, she strutted those strong legs towards the desk. Slinging the black cannon off her back, she leaned over and placed both brown-gloved hands on the desk.

"Howdy partner," she said.

"Howdy."

"You look down. Everything good these days?"

He smirked back at her, "Yeah, I just came home off a bad job to find the place'd been bugged."

"Well that's not good. What'd you do about it?"

"I found 'em, broke 'em, and threw 'em away," he told her.

She smirked. "At least that's still normal for you."

"Hardy-har-har," he mocked back. "What brings ya by, Lady?"

"Oh, nothin' much," she said as she walked on by past the front of his desk and over to her usual spot, a couch by the bar. "Just some terrorists took out a big chunk of the city, thought we could grab a bite to eat over it, shoot the shit for awhile."

His eyes snapped wide open.

"Run that by me again?"


	8. Zero Tolerance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Onward the investigation goes, the hunter valiant in his drive, the search insidious in its trap. The lady rides with him for this journey, but will they discover the truth?

**Hard to believe it, but the woman told him no lies.**

* * *

Lounging on his couch, Lady made herself at home as they munched on freshly delivered Pizza.

"What in hell," he said threw cheesy chomps. "I left this city for only one damned day."

"I know, I know," she replied. "I was about as shocked as you are when I first heard, it came outta nowhere. Still feels pretty surreal, to be honest."

He just couldn't believe it. After he had finished that slice, he grabbed another from the box. Thankfully, they always knew to order more than enough when they dined in. There were boxes of other accoutrements laying across their designated tables. Lady had some breadsticks and buffalo wings, Dante had cinnamon-sticks and potato skins loaded with cheese and bacon. He was eating as much as he could, the last thing he'd consumed having been a 3 Musketeers. Sugary and processed versus greasy and fried. Hard to pick.

"What happened exactly?"

"There's a lotta panic and pandemonium right now, people are still missing. Main thing is that all the cops and news outlets are saying it's a bombing, but survivors have . . . a different recollection."

He had a feeling what she would say. "And that would be?"

"The people that saw it happen? They said there was no bombing, it was . . ." she paused, hesitant to continue, "buckle up for this one, it's a wild tale," and she cleared her throat, "so, some people said they saw some kind of massive monster that showed up and started blasting the streets with nuclear fire. The lack of believability that has, of course, means the official word is that those eye-witness accounts are sensational conspiracy theories, and I'm inclined to agree with that, but . . . we both know by that description the only thing it could be. A giant monster with spider legs?"

". . . Can't be anything but a demon," he answered.

"Bingo," she said.

The man sat back in his chair, a perplexed look on his face.

"You're a hundred percent sure?" He asked.

"No. Truth be told, I'm skeptical myself. The scale this thing had to be makes no sense. If it was so large, then it should be easy to find, but no one's found anything, not a trail, not a chemical, nothing. The media's spinning it as a bombing because there's no better explanation at the moment. There probably won't be anytime soon. The only thing we can do is go downtown where it happened and take a look around investigating it ourselves, though that doesn't seem likely given the feds got that whole section roped off from the public."

"Already?" He said. "They got there pretty quick."

"All I know is that something isn't right here," she told him, insecure of validity. "I'm not sure what's going on, but I do have a contact, courtesy of Paulie."

"Paulie?"

"Paulie. You flirted with her at Morrison's Christmas party two years ago."

"Doesn't ring a bell," he said.

"The blonde with the big tits," Lady replied flatly.

"Oh her!" He remembered. "How's she been?"

She rolled her eyes. "Terrible, from what I've heard. She's got a brother who was in the attack, swears up and down he saw some kind of giant creature."

Dante bowed his head with a sigh. He'd been sure to leave no stone unturned, to destroy all remaining earthly entities of a demonic shade, yet there still remained these recent few.

First, mobs of evil attacking him in packs, and now, Godzilla.

"So, what's the pitch?"

"We go in, we take a look, we report back. Simple," she said.

"Thought you said the cops got it roped off."

"Yeah, well," she began, lovingly defiant. "I know a guy."

The man knew in his heart of hearts this wasn't just some random coincidence. There was something foul in the air, and he couldn't stand the stench.

* * *

**(*.*.*)**

* * *

Not enough time passed for general order to return to these desolated streets. Police were doing what their numbers could afford.

And the rest just wasn't cutting it.

Though the perimeter was clearly defined, not much was being done on the inside yet. Sad to say, the general size of this place was just too large. Police were swarming across the city, not a single surface wasn't doused by red and blue rapture, and the city seemed to ooze this curse of misfortune, as though all within it were doomed to fall out of love with life, perennially. The master of these blue uniforms, the commissioner, barked orders through the radios and frantic footsteps shuffled along home-grown soldiers towards serving and protecting as best they knew how. Just like voodoo dolls, they organized in straight lines, put up borders, prepared disorienting speeches, and pulled together a semblance of coherence.

Dante wandered along the broken ground beside Lady. Desolate smoke filled the air, and sulfur remained a pungent smell, noxious.

They came to an obscure section of the perimeter, having travelled by motorbike. At this stage, convenience was the triumphant desire. So they observed there was little in the way of police reinforcement beyond a thin piece of caution tape that had been established by preliminary officers and a single guard post. What a pathetic excuse for standard procedure. As it happened, the under-staffed police were also frantically forgetful.

In times of chaos, oversight was common. And Lady told no lies, the policeman standing guard halting them but seeming to recognize her.

"Hold up," he said. "Oh, it's you."

"Hey," she replied knowingly. "We're here, gotta get in. Me and him are gonna go snoop around."

The officer looked over the hunter with some skepticism.

Lady produced an envelope from her jacket and passed it to the man.

Looking inside, he seemed please by the amount and changed his tune.

"Yeah? Well . . . you guys oughta be careful in there, okay? And keep outta sight, I can't have anybody knowing about this."

"Yeah, you know me," she said. "When I keep, I keep secrets."

"Yeah, yeah . . ." the officer repeated. "Go on now, get the fuck outta here, 'kay?"

So they snuck under the tape and rode inward, careful to tread only where the authority did not yet dare.

They moved slowly past the work of the beast, glaring at the surroundings as though they were monolithic statues carved in tribute to destruction. Scattered and torn . . . there wasn't much left that could be practically used. This place wasn't far from where he'd been before, where Roger's bar had once stood. In some way, he must've known they were connected, as though more demons had appeared after he'd left, but that couldn't be right. As far as he knew, they were hunting only him, weren't they? Bolder his obsession grew, and it carried him further towards the center of this fallout, further and further inland to the direct start, and it was only then that the truth clawed itself around his heart.

He'd already been here. Not too much earlier, perhaps only a matter hours, but it was unmistakable. Last time he'd seen the district, there were still people to speak of, places to see.

Now, there were only cremated statues, humanity imprisoned in ash within an eternal grave. The charred ruins held only fragments of society that existed before them. It was almost as though a war had broken across the district, one that lasted years. The odd, occasional sign survived atop a shell of a building, or a half-melted display in the windowsill of a building thats back was torn away. And there, as they drew closer still to the center, was the true origin of this disaster. The hospital, St. Nevermore.

Seems today just wouldn't leave him alone.

The one place it all came from was the exact same one he'd visited not even a full day prior. The murkiness of the ruin was palpable, like a killer spawn that couldn't understand its use had expired.

Roger . . . what became of him? Death had claimed his soul, and yet, there seemed to be a crow left of the murder, a daunting remnant of a pin driven through the flesh, flesh that had rotted and grown sore, and in soreness had become torn. Just as it was for him, when all seemed fine with city life and the families were pain-free, life jabbed another pin through them.

Around they searched, and Lady remained ignorant of his worry. Fear returned to him, an odd sense that all control had been lost, and the man's demonic blood spiked in his back a pulse of evil. Malevolence still left its mark. In the torn down ashes, Nevermore's core somehow remained, barely standing at all, shakily stooped somehow with barely a complex-skeleton in place, exposed rebar evident from the edges of fractured concrete.

The woman beside him took notice of the man's agonized expression now. He'd grown unable to stand the sight.

"What's wrong?" She asked him.

He stared out at nothing, silent.

"Dante, talk to me."

"Never can be too sure who's nearby," he told her. "Better not use that name."

"Right, right, I forget . . . _Tony_ ," she smirked at the correction. "You okay, smartass?"

Again, he didn't answer.

"Okay, now I know something's wrong," and she turned towards him, compassion on her lips. "What's going on?"

"I don't know," he said finally, feeling empty of reason. "I can't tell you what's wrong, but . . . I was here yesterday. I dropped someone off at this hospital."

"Wait what?" Lady stopped entirely.

"I know," he said. "It's too much of a coincidence— I drop a friend off and when I'm gone, some mega-monster comes outta nowhere and lays waste to the 'Big Apple lite'."

She glared at him, and saw those faded eyes stare gloomily at the wreckage. "But why? How? Where were you yesterday?"

"It's a long story," he told her, reluctant to make further mention of it. It wasn't something he could bare at the moment. "I was in the neighborhood."

Destruction of this scale was not something to be curt about. He was always a guarded man, not someone she could be very close with, though they had . . . 'shared' some moments. Their history together was twisted by now, complex and convoluted, though when the need arose, she would make it simple again. Every once in a while he had to bleed, and if not for nothing, they'd come undone together. Yet it seemed these days he bled off someplace else.

"These things are supposed to be gone, I thought. For the most part," she assured herself, and asked him pensively, "Right?"

His breath quickened and he staggered through dust looking for anything that might avoid the question, but he found none.

"Yes, they are . . ." he spoke, bemused. "But the thing capable of all this, it's nothing I've come across before."

And then, an electric tingle ran up the back of his spine.

From darkness, they heard a death rattle come. It was an old, corroded vocalization, something otherworldly, and he knew then, dead-simple, there was no such thing as coincidence. Quick with their hands, they drew their weapons, Lady's 9mm Beretta and her submachine gun from her waist, Dante's two custom model pistols silver and black, aiming around at whatever lurked nearby. Back to back, the two came to stand, out of tactical necessity. Whatever arrived was hungry for blood, that much was plain. Growling rose in timbre and crushed silence. A cold chill settled around them, and the eyes of beasts opened within the weary darkness that almost seemed to pour forward like a foul mist.

"Fantastic," Dante declared as there came the silhouettes of what tread toward them.

They were numerous and varied. Some were hunched down, hulking and lizard-like, crests upon their reptilian heads. Others looked to be mangled humans, standing wholly unnerving and stripped of flesh, and they made shrill whines that reminded them of monkeys, masks on their horrid faces: Nobodies if ever they knew someone. Among them stood more Brutes, ugly and hateful, and upon their shoulders were bat-like things perched, ready to pounce; wailing specters above them held aloft giant rusty scissors, unholy creatures known as Sins.

Well, it wasn't looking too good.

With a sudden bray, the creatures lunged at the two.

Dante pushed off his feet forward and disappeared as he sliced through several at once, electric trails curling and unfolding about as pincers of light, bolting hot power through tainted flesh. From the cover of her launcher, Lady covered the hunter down, shooting off volleys of missiles that burst caustic shrapnel without care, and the man managed to escape the fray himself unscathed. Alastor crackled power as blood dripped down its metallic sides, staring back. He quickly stood and flung the blade vertically. It swirled through the air in a violent circle, almost possessed by another entity's hands. It had but one goal, to rip and tear. The blade spun and spun a million miles an hour through the onslaught, peppered already by gunfire from the impeccable Lady, who kept herself out of kicking-distance. Limbs of numerous creatures came free, severed by the silver blade, and the man drew the boys— Ebony and Ivory.

He fired off three shots, first striking a Sin in its head. Lights out. Next came the lizard, piercing its side with two rounds, and a boot to the side cleared out that monster just fine.

Dust flew from the remains and he sustained fire on a brute's chest, rapid action pumping shots out like nobody's business. Along came Alastor and took the demon's head. Down came the gun shells and quashed the skull of its friend.

A demon of ice, crooked and kingly, formed into being and shot at him spikes from its hand. He answered with Ebony's stark barrel and instantly tore out its left knee.

There were still too many of them.

Lady laid down heavy fire, as heavy as she could, and when the launcher proved too cumbersome, she slung it back and drew her primaries, a submachine gun pistol and a semi-automatic.

Mayhem and movement. She could barely keep herself paced with these breeds, they hungered after her far greater than any prior being she'd known. Still she tore through beast after beast, blitzing those annoying bat-like beasts that flew and screeched endlessly, and it gave her no small pleasure in liquifying their bodies. She ducked beneath the swing of a brute swung her foot back like a wheel, crashing against its back hard enough to force it forward some bit, though it merely turned and smiled. A bullet in the face soon fixed that.

Alastor rocketed by and sliced off the arm on a Nobody's hind legs, and it brayed in horror at the loss as she peppered its face with her Beretta.

The man himself plunged fist through flesh and powered through beast after beast, but they seemed to keep coming from nowhere, as though summoned by Pluto himself.

A Sin wandered upon the woman aiding him and slashed at her its mighty scissors. A crash of blue lighting tore into the ghostly weapon and forced it backwards, the man's smoking gun having released a charged shot. With a roll to the side, she evaded a Brute's crushing arm and fired off rounds from her submachine gun in all directions. To say she was overrun was a nightmarishly simplistic view. At the very least, the bullets created steam, consecrated by holy water to repel that which now hunted her, smoking the demonic flesh. The Sin flummoxed and felt torn as the hunter fired off another charged shot and put it to sleep. A scythe planted itself within Dante's back-right shoulder and his eyes widened and grew red with rage. The blade returned from the roundtrip he'd sent it on to his open hand, and within moments, the reaper behind him fiercely ripped apart at the slash of Alastor's voltaic egde. The scythe disintegrated from his back.

His eyes surged blue and focused wrath flowed from the man's mind.

Lightning cracked the sky and struck the trash before him in prolonged waves, and he purged forward the edge of his sword, stinging through the crowd; thunderous fury guided his every movement.

He emerged out at the other side of the pack, and saw Lady wild-eyed, moving fast, faster than he thought possible for a human. She fired off any shot she could, flipped backwards over blades and claws, fought tooth and nail for breathing room, all in vain, or so it seemed. They just refused to stop, and it didn't matter what she threw at them, their flesh splintered and they kept dragging on and on. Behind the hunter came a mangled thing of twisted, contorted dimension, baying like an ape that had sprained its legs. He turned himself around, and with his venom spat back a strike mighty vicious, cleaving the formless thing in two, the Nobody's oversized body falling, and he struck it more, slicing, fraying, butchering, crushing till it bayed no more.

With that, room was established, the two hunters beside themselves, still surrounded. They stood back to back. Lady reloaded her weapons with machine-like precision and speed. Dante relaxed his shoulders and stance, and he loosened his demeanor accordingly, though his face remained stern and disciplined.

"Well, can't say this is the best position we've ever been in together," Lady said as she took aim.

He chuckled aloud, "Aw c'mon, the sex wasn't that bad."

"Whoever said anything about quality?" She replied. "Stay loose, big boy."

His smirk renewed itself.

The demons crept upon them, once more ready to pounce at any moment.

Dante held Alastor in one hand, Ebony in the other. A cool breeze blew across the decimated ruins.

The man pressed onward into the awaiting fray and slashed through a Brute as it bore down at him with razor nails. Mere hairs of Dante's front lock severed themselves as he barely avoided the beast's hand. The torso lay tarnished with a severe gash, and with a pull of the trigger, the black pistol killed the brain. He hadn't even stopped to look. He reversed his grip on the blade. Fluidly, he lashed the edge into a reptile's oversized jaw. It closed its meaty jowl mid-bite on the steel but couldn't crack the pristine metal. From the muzzle, it thrashed and thrashed, tossing the man upwards and around wildly. He fired at the crest to no avail. Hurled over in an arc, he brought his boots down and smashed its hind legs into the ground, then pulled back on the blade without remorse, knee jammed into its scaled back.

The top of the skull came free with a spout of crimson.

His blade freed, he dashed back as more pikes of frost crashed into the ground where he stood. Holding Alastor back behind him, grip still reversed, he baited the limping beast of ice. Ill-fated, it leapt for his throat. From the dragon's edge, he released a surge of plasma, given shape as a sonic cut through air as swung the blade upwards in front of himself, and split the creature in half yard's away.

Lady held back no firepower, a Brute's face blasted with shotgun pellets and a Sin's ghostly form torn asunder by more rockets. Ammo wasn't running dry anytime soon, thankfully.

The hunter directed himself to the sky, leaping forward to a winged harpy and he swung the blade carnivorously. Bisection left behind, he zipped towards another that spat fire at him, and he struck again, diagonally. Head crunched, it flailed and died on the vine, turning to dust, just as the others had. He wasn't done yet, a red platform of runes forming beneath him as he took off further. With electric spite, he cut through every creature he could without remorse, movements magniloquent in the dark amber sky. Alastor's job had finished, and he drew the boys again.

With light and dark, he reigned down turmoil.

Jagged, they ripped and tore, denigrating twisted flesh with foul sensory corruption, and rendering all the devils twisted lust for battle dust and death, the hunter revolving and revolving beyond sight's comprehension as he descended through the sky. He dropped like a guided feather, a blur of elegant murder. The spray shredded even the most agile of the demons, Lady herself almost terrified at the display were it not for every bullet seeming to miss her with intricate precision.

She stood deathly still, firing off only what she could from her already-outstretched arms, mostly aiming for the stragglers he left behind. Every shot was a victory.

Dante turned himself upright, and his feet hit the ground moments later.

He stood straight and lazily scanned what was left. A focus of his strength through the fire had left him feeling a little light-headed at the moment. He held zero tolerance for their kind and that drove him. Seemed to be most had turned to dust, thankfully. Somehow, Lady had made it through in one piece, though that wasn't surprising by this point. She had a knack for this business most didn't. If he hadn't known any better, he would've sworn she were enhanced just as much himself.

Still, the simple fact remained: why had these creatures appeared? So recent, filling the world again with their darkness and their misery. And this place . . . what secrets lay here? For what reason had had they come to this burial ground, where people lay dead beneath their feet?

His head quickly cleared itself of distraction and he took care of what remained. Only three of them.

He turned towards Lady and sighed, motioning his head at her towards the trio.

She nodded her head and slung around her bazooka once more. A press of the trigger and a solitary missile burst forward.

As it reached them, he fired an electric bullet at the tail. In one great eruption, the final three were engulfed in bright flames, and they burned away to nothingness.

He sighed and holstered his guns as he saw her walked towards him.

"Alright, I've got two questions," she said. "Number one: what the fuck? Number two: who the hell were you droppin' off here yesterday?"

"Well," he began. "I was helpin' out an old friend, they needed medical assistance."

"Uh-huh, and it just so happens that the whole neighborhood gets blown to shit the day after? What's the truth?" she demanded.

He pursed his lips and nodded his head. He cleared his throat. "Dude was an old work colleague. I came to him for help on a job, and he did what I asked. After that, hell broke loose, some Brutes found their way to us and chopped up some people, real nasty-like."

She widened her eyes. "Wait what?"

"Yeah, I know," he replied. "Demons, just like these guys. They tried to take us out when he went under. I don't know what it means."

She crossed her arms, frustrated. "Well, it sounds to me like someone is trying to send you a fucking message."

"I noticed." His words were emotionless.

And closer it drew, scythe of amethyst burning in the dark . . .

"Look out!" She bellowed.

And the man gazed back to notice, just barely in time, Death riding towards him within a cloud of darkness through the air, swinging away its purple-flame scythe, the steel dipped in the lurid fires of hell. With a ghostly wail, it swung at his stomach. The man, wide-eyed, struck Alastor forward, and fire crashed against lightning in a fierce but brief glow. The creature unnaturally jumbled itself through the air, and through darkness, it came to stand apart from the two, staggered and smiling.

"Dante . . ." it lumbered deeply. "You must join us."

The words were unsettling, sounding as though forced through a body not meant to speak. It gave them pause, and while he was surprised, he remained poised and unimpressed.

"Join you?" he scoffed. "That's a new one. Pretty little gems like you don't come along so often." And he asked in disbelief, "What's up now?"

"Your actions . . . disrespect us," it said back, choppy and discombobulated. "You belong with us, boy. You always belong with us. In time you will come back."

"Nope," Lady piped up. "Don't like that. This guy is bad news. Kill 'em quickly."

"Yeah, I'm working on it," he replied, keeping his eyes trained on the dark entity.

To the form beneath the shroud, he observed a being of leather and bones, skeletal and statuesque, malformed and corrupted to a hobbled wreck, pale and fragile. It was tall, taller than him and taller than even the giants who played sports. Its lips were bound in a smile eternal by leather straps attached to the back of its lopsided skull. Foam dripped from the mouth, teeth sticky and yellow, salival, nose mere slits in the canvas, skin fused to the adhesive modifications.

"So many of your own lay dead at your feet, reduced to dust in the wind . . ." it hissed. "I will teach you. You must learn purity through the pain of loss."

"Yeah yeah, wackapalooza, let's just get this over with," and the man raised his sword to it. "You gonna talk all day like that, or what?"

That only served to make it angrier. "You insolent trash heap, that tongue will be your end!"

And with that, it lunged at the man, and the duo scattered, Lady dashing off for cover behind a remaining partition, while the man pushed onward the crackling tip of his blade.

Within seconds, they collided again and the ruins shook. Foundations already weakened collapsed beneath the fury. A visceral shockwave of blue-purple burst outwards and disintegrated pieces of rubble. The blade itself ground against the entity's abdomen. Cruel looks were exchanged and eyes turned opposing hues as Dante drove the blade through its durable skin, stepping forward with his left foot fierce, applying strong pressure. In kind, it pressed its crooked pale hand against the side of his head, content to squash him like a bug, its unnaturally long arms making the reach no challenge. Those bony fingers closed around the other side of his head, long and spindly like dead branches.

Its demented face glared down at him hatred within its smile.

The thing truly was hideous, too thin and corpse-like, flesh rotted and weak.

A face only a mother could love.

"Ain't you a picture and a half?" he said through clenched teeth.

With a surge of strength, the metal broke the skin and ran the reaper through. Pulsing his own hate through Alastor's fine steel, he unleashed a kinetic force of bright-azure demonic power. It came as a power of olden runes through which his rage flowed. The destruction forced the monstrosity off its feet altogether through a still-standing wall of thick concrete and pipes, and several feet onward still. Contorting to its feet, it swung at the approaching man its massive scythe of flames, though the hunter leapt into the air over the weapon and swung sideways. The blade cut the shroud and jabbed the side of its hip. It stood strong and bashed him across the face with the back of its fist.

They parted and once more it took the sky in a cloud of darkness, swinging its mighty scythe. Dante leapt after it through the air, leaving the ground behind. Flinging himself above the lowness of the strike, his leg narrowly missed the blade, and the blade's edge severed two threads from the ends of his coattails. He landed on his feet, broadly prepared. It staggered forth, its size three times that of a man, a true vanguard of Hell's wrath.

Zooming toward it, steel clanged on steel. The collision of anger was disquieted by longing for release.

It brought about a horrible kerrang that destroyed windows of cars still intact and they traded strikes, battling one another with flips and kicks and slashes and stabs; not a one seemed to deal lasting damage. With a swiping of the blades, the creature flew back and landed off yonder staring upon his living flesh. Dante disappeared in an instant, reappearing right before the foul entity, and bashed hard with another vertical swing.

All he hit was the scythe's stalk, held up by the demon in defense. He struck the same spot again in an instant and kept the blade held down to dominate through strength. Though he was tall, the monster was taller, and it rose itself with difficulty but agency. Towering above him, it moved to choke saw.

A deafening crash tore them apart. It staggered back as he flipped rearward and landed several feet away.

The unearthly huntsman got his bearings again and saw Lady had taken aim at the wicked spirit's cheek with her new pistol. 500 magnum.

The whole in its head slowly closed, steam rising as the consecrated cartridge pushed its way out. It stopped smiling.

Dante smirked and he gripped Alastor's hilt with both hands, preparing for the real fight.

Slowly, they stalked one another. The hunter circled the blade in his hands and paced from side to side, almost baiting it. It snarled at him and skulked around, redressing the grip of its blade.

Dante took a deep breath.

Lunging at last, he swung his blade one-handed at the side of his eerie opponent. The sword clamored against a smart counter of the scythe's head, and he swung again, three times in a row in rapid fashion. They reached an impasse as it hooked his brand, dragging it to his opposite side, and forcing the man to take a step forward. Quickly, the cloaked demon grabbed his wrist and pulled him towards itself, past its head, and thrashed him back into the ground, the sword lost from his grasp. Seizing the man then by his waste, it brought him straight to its mouth and screeched a tortured howl that made his ears bleed.

"Ah!" he shouted.

He lurched back and brought his knee forward, pounding across its chin. A loud crunch rung out.

The man somersaulted backwards, carried by momentum, and he landed still.

His grim enemy rambled away.

Both grimaced at their injuries but pressed forward. Dante attempted another stinger, forging his blade forward, but the demon leapt over him through the air, mocking gravity, and it landed upon an automobile. From afar, Lady launched yet another missile, aiming at the intact gas tank beneath the beast. Eruptions of charred metal and flames materialized, engulfing the creature in shrapnel and resentment. Direct hit. Unsatisfied, it flew out of the explosion at Dante, wildly dicing through the air with the ol' trusty head-taker. The hunter dashed back away from the monstrosity and twisted towards the face of a brick building. The inescapable frenzy came rushing after him, cutting through air unchallenged.

He vaulted off the ground and bolted up the side of the wall. The fiend battered into the bricks below him. Reaching twelve feet high, he pushed off, spinning and darting through the air, landing numerous feet abroad. The creature broke through into the empty shell of the building, dazed, returning soon enough from the dust and jumping out growling.

Laughter escaped Dante's lips, as it looked so impenetrably disheveled.

"Tricky dick," he quipped.

And the man charged forth, his eyes running ruby with hidden choler. It sprang toward him in kind, hovering off the ground, and flew upwards. The man raced ahead and leapt up to the sky to meet it. They clashed, matching each other with an opposing set of slashes, countless sword strikes ably canceling out the swings of its dulling scythe. The night sky was lit only by an incomparably bright full moon, cascading natural luminescence all around the city.

Light came in tandem from the destroyed buildings themselves, battling for supremacy against that stellar deity in the sky.

Together they formed the oddest of blue hues that seemed to blot out the stars completely, leaving only the endless, suffocating void.

Lady took potshots every now and then, aiding Dante as best she could. Support was a vital role. She couldn't compete against a thing like that.

Dante wrenched the blade down, though he was parried by an unexpected movement; the reaper swirled in spirals and launched a vortex of slices from its weapons. Forced backward, the hunter's feet barely touched the ground for a fraction of a second as he capered through the air with crushing billows of sonic-paced swings. Hatred informed his aerial rave through the flesh, flecks of preternatural blood spraying across the blackened street, taken from its warped figure, flowing across the tar as he cut and cut and cut. Grounded, it kept moving, darting off to the left as Dante carried on plowing, paralleled in motion. The two, remaining in time with one another, glided across the blood-stained avenue towards what once was the local strip club, Love Planet. The hell between them grew greater, the hunter becoming faster in the hopes of outpacing it. The thing brought down its scythe and faced the blade away, dragging the metal across ground. Released was a storm of lacerations.

He could only guard behind the draconic hilt. Though it nearly knocked the blade from his hand, the man managed to hold on.

With Death's weapon scraping against the flat of the sword, he resisted the force instead, standing strong.

Brilliant sparks danced by as both armaments clashed over and over. Dante ground his feet against the blacktop, and he came to a stop.

With a dug in rage, he rammed Alastor back towards its fast-approaching torso. The blade gored into the creature's pale side, from which poured liberally glowing blood. The blade tore till it carried the beast itself, and as though he were a major-leaguer, he swung off the heels of his feet swinging the electric brand as a baseball bat. Off the ground, it howled and hurtled into the side of a jacked-up Ford. Heavy metal contorted as it crashed and crumpled, the beast crawling to stand once more, dazed and confused. With all the class of a fifties teamster, he gave Alastor rest on his back and drew the boys from his leather holsters again. Spiteful slugs littered its corrupt frame. The flesh shredded, split, chewed apart by unending silver. Its arm came away, bone splintered and severed.

Lead kept pumping out till it collapsed forward from a thousand holes in the shell, bullets created by the Devil's own power.

Blue blood spilled from its mouth, death's cloak weakening, shortened and revealing the hideous thing beneath. It wheezed and looked up to see the man's heel ram its face.

"Hyaah!" he bellowed, and the skeletal entity's head bashed into the dented car door behind it.

Alastor came crashing down onto its shoulders and stung through its devilish brawn like a butterknife, and once more it howled at the Devil-Hunter, hurling around its scythe at the man. Like artwork, he bent over backwards, still standing somehow, the blade a mere inch away from his chin as it passed him by. His sword came again. The steel slashed through the divot in its weakened belly, like the nail through Christ's hand. Once more the beast howled, and the Hunter grasped the throat, strangulation trampling, his blade driven in further through its back. When he felt it'd suffered enough, he pulled on his weapon and tore. From its gut came the metal's speedy edge and ripped open the fragmenting flesh further.

It toppled again, forward onto the knees.

It stumbled around, raising its only means of defense toward him, that of its boorish executioner.

Dante struck horizontally twice against the demon's scythe, breaking the iron grip of its shrill hands. Reversing his grip of the brand, he brought it to the throat, hacking at diseased muscle. The severity cut all the way inside its neck, partway decapitating the wasting wastrel. Back onto its curved spine it fell, sickly thin and respirating, vocal cords severed outright by the brutal surgery. The body cracked the ground with little grace. It flattened under the might of Dante's right boot stomping into its shredded chest. Plasmatic paint splashed onto the cars beside him, vividly clashing against their faded, grungy color schemes.

It convulsed and spewed glowing, flaccid blood clots from its mouth, all of them cerulean.

He wrenched the sword free of the thing's neck and pointed the blade's sharp tip at its wounded throat, grip still transposed, prepared to drive the weapon fully through.

He spat in its withered face, having grown tired of the fight.

"All right creepazoid, you ready to talk?" he asked the beast.

"Dante," it grumbled at him. "You are indeed strong."

"Yeah, yeah," he replied, motioning with his hand. "Get on with it."

"Whatever it is you want to know, you won't drag it out of me," it said.

"Now, now, that's rude," he said and stuck the blade back into the wound. He twisted it around, toying with tendons. The metal gnawed at the neck hoping to rip further the sore across its putrid skin. Above tortured wails, the hunter spoke, "We don't like to be rude, now do we?"

It screamed harsh things in an olden, foul language. He wrenched Alastor out.

"What's the matter, chief?" he asked. "Havin' a lil' trouble breathing?"

It growled at him further and he jammed the blade again. Such horrible things it shouted . . . he ripped the blade free.

"Ya see, when you talk like that, my blade-hand gets twitchy," he said. "Now . . . I'm gonna ask you some questions. You're gonna answer them. You understand my meaning, Reaps?"

It hissed and coughed to something bestial, before eventually answering affirmatively.

"Good," he said. "Demons are back thriving on Earth. Why?"

"Because he brought us back."

"Who is 'he'?"

It chuckled, somehow. "He is one who walks the other side."

"Riddles . . . perfect. What's the other side? Hell?"

"Avernus," it growled, "the realm of Demon kind. You should know that, cretin."

He rolled his eyes. "So 'he' is in Avernus?"

It merely growled at him, distracted by that horrid pain. He took that as a yes.

"How did you get to here then?" he asked.

"Here?" it asked, "I was born to this putrid soil, boy. I cannot join with my kind till thy mission is complete."

The man's eyes widened. "What?"

"This sickened earth was the grounds for my birth, un-foul one."

"That's—," Dante said. "No, that's not possible."

It laughed at him, "Hahahahaha, oh, you silly child . . . there is much you do not yet understand. The creatures that lurk here, we are but slaves to his bidding. He made us what we are and took us from these mortal shells to a new existence, one bright and glorious. We are born here for him and he sets us upon this crooked land to shepherd his purity. We will return to Avernus when all the souls have been harvested and the roots of the Qliphoth have grown strong, we will build the bridge anew, the one you destroyed so long ago."

The man glared off, unsure of what the annoyingly-cryptic words meant. He didn't have time to consider them.

With a flick of its wrist, the reaper's wounds closed and there came the scythe to its grasp. It batted away Alastor's stinging steel and merged into the ground, fading away from him. Staggering back, Dante's eyes darted around his environment for the creature as a blackness took shape within a nearby wall, and within a moment, it came forth into the night once more, swinging its unholy blade at his head. The hunter swung around rightward. Alastor swiped at the scythe's edge and blasted its defense apart. Ebony, drawn with his left hand, aimed up and he pulled trigger; it shouted one last shell at the creature's skull. The head cracked in two, bullet planted square into the forehead, and it ceased all movement.

"Rust in peace," he scoffed and dropped his hand to his side, angry.

It collapsed broken to the ground, turning to dust.

He blew away the smoke from the barrel and circled the gun in his hand as he seated it back in the holster. Another one.

He licked some blood off his fingers and rested Alastor on his back.

"What the hell was that?" Lady said behind him, approaching cautiously, guns still pointed, looking for anything surrounding them.

The man sighed to himself. "Nothin' good. But, I do know for certain now what caused this whole mess."

"Oh yeah? What'd that creep tell ya?"

"Whatever did this? It didn't come from some other dimension," he said. "It's a homegrown threat."

"What?" she said, white as a sheet.

With a snap of his fingers, he said, "Someone's making demons."

* * *

**To Be Continued**


End file.
